


No two so close

by TheCowsAteMyHomework



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Kidnapping, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-01-21 09:18:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12454296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCowsAteMyHomework/pseuds/TheCowsAteMyHomework
Summary: "There are no two people close enough that something cannot separate them. Some point at which they were never fully connected to begin with."A series of moments:  Sidonie is a governess masquerading as more than she is, and Billy is determined to see this war through.





	1. Pretending

            “This one doesn’t fit either.” She yanks the stuck garment down, and Lizzie is so quick to snatch it away that Sidonie trips and tears the hem in the process. But now is not the time to mourn a bit of lace.

            Above, the yelling has taken on a note of panic, and cannon and pistol fire has given way to the clash of swords.

            “Devil take them all.” But her voice is high and thin with fear instead of anger. Sidonie knows that despite his best efforts Captain Isaacs’ assurances that his men would drive off the pirates before they could board have proven false.

            “Here.” Lizzie flings another dress at her, a confection of pale blue muslin and little cream ribbons. “Try that,” and she is back to digging before Sidonie has even finished shaking it out.

            The room is in shambles, Lizzie’s beautiful frocks tossed about and trampled without regard for money or the sanctity of good silk. Sidonie pulls the dress up her hips and prays with a fervor any nun would envy. Her prayers are answered. It fits. Mostly. If only God had seen fit to let them outrun the pirates. Perhaps they can still –

            Another pistol shot, and it can’t be more than fifty feet down the cramped hall.

            “It’s fine!” She is hysterical, giddy with relief. “It’s fine, Lizzie, it fits!” She wades through the fabric covering the floor to pull Lizzie away from the trunk.

            The accoutrements of a proper lady are more difficult. Her fingers tremble so badly it takes three tries to fasten Lizzie’s pearls around her neck.

            “Not that it matters,” her young charge mutters sourly, “It’s not as if they’ll let us keep any of it.” She’ll be right. They don’t.

o.O.o

            The pirates aren’t rough when they take the jewellery – they even ask, a strange, pretty little play at politeness that rings so empty it echoes like a dry well. The jewels are no loss, not really. Assuming they survive this Lizzie can buy more whenever she likes, and Sidonie’s borrowed pearls are of no concern to her, not when they are standing on the deck of black-flagged ship surrounded by men with hungry eyes. The pearls have served their purpose. They and the dress are expensive, and now their captors believe her to be expensive as well, that both Elizabeth Lindon and Sidonie Lauxenne are gentleborn ladies and that Sidonie is her older French cousin rather than merely her tutor and chaperone. But Sidonie thinks that were she a man and possessed of more courage she would have broken the teeth of the brute who holds out his hand for her wedding ring. Reluctantly, and with Laurent’s voice in her ear telling her that _It is just a ring, cherie_ she slides it off her finger. If she’d had more presence of mind, she’d have stowed it in her bodice. He smiles knowingly when she drops it in his hand, and Sidonie thinks that his browned teeth might crumble even from a blow from her own, much smaller hand.

            That they at least wait patiently for the ladies to hand over their jewellery instead of pulling it from them is a small blessing. As Sidonie unclasps the gold and emerald pendant from Lizzie’s neck she can just glimpse a sliver of land in the distance, and she is suddenly afraid they will not try for a ransom, and what if their best chance is to swim for it, but Lizzie can’t swim and it’s so far that they’d have to be mad to try it anyways –

            The captain reaches for Lizzie.

            Sidonie has never fought anyone in her life, save as a child when she and Julien both wrestled over the last of maman’s cookies. At some point she’d been declared too old for such childish scraps, and the only other occasion where a physical confrontation had seemed imminent Sidonie had let herself be convinced to run. But when the Captain, a hard-faced man (later, she will learn Flint is his chosen nomme de guerre, and find it entirely fitting) still sporting dark splashes of blood on his clothes, takes Lizzie by the elbow to lead her into his cabin, Sidonie fights. She has no idea how, only her hands and her voice, which she uses fiercely, with all the strength she can muster but to all the avail of nothing. A valuable lesson is learned that day on the deck of a pirate ship: rage is a powerful antidote to fear but, more importantly, it means nothing on its own. Two men haul her backwards, kicking and shrieking, and Lizzie, bless her sweet strong heart, walks straight-backed and white-faced and lets herself be led inside. Sidonie continues to shriek even after the door is closed, whether from hysteria or to let Lizzie know she is not alone; the reason is irrelevant once a hand claps over her mouth.

            Sidonie’s teeth find fingers, and she bites down. Hard.

            “Ow! Fuck!” Her teeth rend skin as he pulls his fingers free. “He won’t hurt her! For the love of god, calm down, he won’t hurt her!”

            The arm around her waist is stronger than barrel bindings, and there is nothing to do but accept how utterly and completely helpless she is. It is all Sidonie can do to fight the prick of frustrated tears, to remind herself to gather her wits and _think_. If only thought had more strength against barrel bindings.

            “He won’t hurt her. He’s just asking a few questions.” Sidonie cranes her head around to look at her captor, the one whose hand she bit. It is a long way up to look. The man is a veritable tree, and just as solid, and she wants nothing more than to be let go.

            “If you’re telling the truth then you’ll unhand me at once.” When he looks wary of the prospect she continues, “I swear I shall not fight.” _For the moment._

            He still stands too close, and Sidonie regrets her outburst. It would have been better for them both if she’d kept her head. Wasn’t that one of the last things Laurent had told her? _You can’t change this, cherie, so find something you can._

            “What is it he wishes to know? I am sure I can answer his questions just as easily.”

            “He’ll see you once he’s done speaking with Miss Lindon. For now I’m to take you to a cabin.” The prospect of going below decks, of being trapped in an enclosed space with this man sets her on edge all over again. She can see him preparing to grab her if she goes back on her word not to fight. Sidonie clasps both hands tightly across her middle, determined to keep both fear and revulsion under control, and follows.

            “You can rest easy now,” he says, “No one will touch you.”

            Well that brings her up short. “Rest easy?” Her voice cracks open on the last, but some things simply defy comprehension. “There are a hundred dead men on that ship. Men _you_ killed.”

            “Captain Flint gave those men a chance to stand down and they didn’t take it. We didn’t have a choice.” He believes that, he truly does.

            She stares back with naked disbelief, but he’s already turned down a set of steps, clearly expecting no further argument. Sidonie does not bother. She’s never been one for futile endeavors.

            The cabin is a bare arm span and a half wide, with a small stool and a chest that seems incongruously large in one corner.

            “You’ll stay here for now. Food will be brought to you. If the captain grants permission, you can take meals in the galley with the rest of the crew.” They certainly will not. “I’ll have another hammock brought in. I know you’ll want to stay with Miss Lindon. And you have my word no one will lay a hand on you.” He makes a good show at being sincere, but Julien always said a man who insists too strongly always means to do the exact opposite. God knows, he was a perfect example. As much as it would comfort her to believe the man now acting as her jailor, experience has done little to make her question her brother’s original assessment. A ship of savages could hardly be the exception. Sidonie keeps her back to the wall until he leaves and the door is closed behind him.

o.O.o

            “He only asked me about Mr. Hornby, Sid. That was all.” Lizzie sits with her legs swinging over the side of the second hammock. If she’d been in a more generous mood (which she assuredly is not), Sidonie might have called the cabin cozy. The only reason both of them are not miserable in the cramped space is because they are allowed to share it. The chest in the corner has been replaced with their own trunks, and they are both currently engaged in the task of altering some of her dresses to fit Sidonie. Luckily, Lizzie is grown and so they are of a height, and anything that cannot be let out further Sidonie can manage by loosening the laces.

            “And he just wanted to know a little about the ship, and of home. Sid, he wasn’t awful. His manners were even gentlemanly.” She is too relieved, too eager to see the brightness when they are locked in a dark room – in short, too young. No one wants to believe a situation is as dire as it is. Sidonie allows her the comfort, for now.

            In truth Captain Flint had been civil – more proud than any pirate had a right to be, but civil nonetheless.

            And he’d asked her about Mr. Hornby as well. Robert Hornby had staked a fair amount of his fortune in Governor Rogers’ venture, and by all accounts he is a man who sees to his investments personally. “What about home?”

            “Oh just papa, and what I missed and what I looked forward to in Nassau.” Admiral Lindon had led the fleet that ferried governor Rogers to his new home. Before it had been attacked, the HMS Northumberland was to take Lizzie to meet her father.

            Captain Flint had also asked Sidonie about those very same men, and out of a fear of imperiling them both, she had answered truthfully. Without knowing what Lizzie had already told him a lie was too risky.

            _“We will be sending a letter to Nassau.”_

_“And you need someone to transcribe it.”_

_At the look on the captain’s face Sidonie closes her mouth and keeps it well shut. A pirate perhaps, but no fool, and she’d do well to remember it. “No. And even if that were not the case, there are enough men on this ship with their letters capable of the task.”_

_He passes a sheet of paper across his desk. Not a single blot of ink mars the letter, written in a hard, elegant hand. She will think curiously of that when Lizzie calls him ‘gentleman’. Perhaps once. No longer. Gentlemen do not wear blood on their cuffs._

_“I am sure though that an addendum from you, as Miss Lindon’s guardian, would assure Admiral Lindon both of the reality of his situation and that you and Miss Lindon will not be mistreated. Will you do that, Madame?” Not be mistreated._ So long as the admiral cooperates.

            He’d asked with such expectation of obedience – hadn’t even asked at all really – that her first reaction was the heartfelt wish to refuse. Sidonie had wanted so badly to deny them something – anything – so that she was not the only one to feel thwarted by god and fate. But this was just as advantageous for Lizzie and Sidonie as it was for them, so she kept her silence and took up the quill to implore Lord Lindon and ‘Lord Lauxenne’ to pay whatever ransom the pirates asked.

o.O.o

            “It’s not going to be enough. Just cause we have his daughter and niece doesn’t mean we can force them to turn around and sail back to England. There’s no way Rogers will let Lindon stay in command if it’ll jeopardize his chances of holding onto Nassau.” Billy’s arms remain crossed, thumb worrying the hilt of a knife. The price they’d paid for leverage without much weight was steep. They’d buried seven men at sea that night.

            “That won’t be Rogers’ call.”

            There was a time, once, when Billy saw his father as the most controlled man in London. _Your father has passion, Billy,_ was how his mother put it. Uncle Jack was more blunt and called it a temper. But his father, every time someone argued with him – either for a lark or because there was a genuine disagreement – Edward Manderly squared his shoulders and kept his voice level, never yelled, not once, not even when it was obvious the other man was trying to get a rise – especially when they were trying to get a rise – but he never gave in, not even an inch. And when Flint meets his eye across the desk, no trace of concern for the lives he’s so cheaply spent, and with unfounded confidence that it’ll all just work out, Billy squares his shoulders and says, level as he can, “I think we all know there are ways around that. The man had himself declared governor of an island England all but gave up on.”

            “We may not have to try as hard as you think to force his hand,” says Flint. “England’s relationship with Spain is already strained. If Rogers can’t return the gold to Havana then it will be ruined. We only need to give Admiral Lindon _enough_ reasons to give up Nassau as a lost cause. We have his daughter and his niece. If we can get the gold as well, he will almost certainly sail back to England.”

            “And in the meantime,” Silver adds, “I’m sure it’ll make him think twice about firing on any ship flying the black that enters the harbor, which isn’t nothing considering we’re only one against eight of them.”

            To Billy it seems as if the real crux is the gold, not the two women they’ve now got aboard ship. And since Silver doesn’t seem a bit surprised by the mention of Spain or the gold, Billy knows he must have had the same thought. That makes him wonder if Silver couldn’t or hadn’t talked Flint out of taking the Northumberland. And if it was hadn’t, then he wondered why and what else he wasn’t being told. Sitting in shackles in the Charles Town harbor Billy had told Vane it didn’t matter that he hated Flint, only that the man was the surest means of throwing England’s yoke off Nassau’s shoulders. Trust in a man’s character isn’t necessary so long as you know where a man’s desire is leading him. After all, if God hadn’t wanted evil men in hell he’d never have let the devil have their souls.

            Nowadays it crosses his mind more frequently that he needs a more predictable devil. But this is the devil they have, and the plan makes enough sense, so for now Billy won’t argue until he has cause. For now he has repairs on the mizzen mast to oversee. The Northumberland had some eighteen-pounders and a cannon crew who knew how to aim. Now they have the eighteen-pounders.

            Outside Flint’s cabin his eyes catch on a fluttering of lavender near the prow.

            Miss Lindon and Miss – Madame – Lauxenne mostly stay below decks, and on the rare occasions when they are seen, it’s always together. Today is sunny, and Miss Lindon is balancing paper and board across her lap. He can’t see what she’s drawing, but she glances now and again at the ship’s wheel. Madame Lauxenne doesn’t look at the ship so much as the people on it. He’s never seen a guard dog jump so much at shadows. She watches the crew the way they watch new recruits taken on from plundered ships – constantly and without ever giving them her back. Not overly subtle about it either. Billy’s done the same often enough even if he was better at hiding it. Took a full month for him to let Silver slip out of his periphery.

            She’s staring up at the crow’s nest, hand shading her eyes. Unlike Miss Lindon he never sees her with a hat, something an Englishwoman wouldn’t be caught dead without in a place like this, or so he assumes. Fashion can’t have changed that much in eight years. Maybe it’s a French thing.

            Her hand drops, along with her gaze, and Billy looks away.

            We notice things that shouldn’t be there; it’s how you survive in a place like this. If he hadn’t seen the outline of a pistol under a man’s shirt after the crew surrendered, if the lookout couldn’t spot a dark patch of coral near the coast… It’s the difference between getting to keep breathing and not. The bright splotch of lavender at the prow is too out of place on this ship not to draw the eye, and when Billy looks from the rail all the way up to where Rollins and Malley are replacing the top stays, his gaze snags once again on the hatless Frenchwoman fighting a losing battle against the wind and an unruly cloud of black hair. She ought to just tie it back if it’s that much trouble.

            When the lookout calls, “Sails on the horizon!” Billy sees the small outline of a clipper but only after first seeing the lavender cloth billowing in front of it. But then the cry is taken up, and weapons are checked and guns are manned, and by the time Flint and Silver emerge from the captain’s cabin the two ladies who shouldn’t be there are hidden away below decks, and Billy’s attention is fully taken by the growing silhouette of the clipper and thoughts of what prize might be found on it.


	2. Sewing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently sailors thought bananas were bad luck to have on a ship.

            Theirs is a dangerous life, and Sidonie and Lizzie are unwilling participants, dragged along like so much luggage. She has been aboard long enough to learn many of their raids go peacefully – not because the pirates are peaceful men, but because other captains care more for their crew’s lives than their cargo. Though twice now they’ve put ashore, and on those occasions the point seemed to be violence rather than plunder. She hadn’t known pirates to attack on land. Then again, she’s never spent weeks aboard a pirate ship. By her count tonight is the sixth raid she and Lizzie have been present for, not including when they were taken from the Northumberland.

            “When do you think they’ll be done?”

            For more than two turns of the sandglass she and Lizzie have been locked in their small cabin, listening to the fighting outside. It is far away, not on their ship. This captain prized the cargo more than is men. Or perhaps it was pride. A great many things have been ruined over men’s pride.

            Lizzie sits curled on the floor, the cards in her hand dropped forward in distraction, and Sidonie can see the three of hearts she’d been coveting. Lizzie is impatient rather than anxious. She’d saved a bit of her fish from lunch, intending to feed it to the cat before they were hurriedly shuffled back to their cabin.

            For better or worse, Lizzie has settled in well to their new situation. More quietly curious than timid, she engages the crew in conversation more often than Sidonie would like. Yesterday, Lizzie demonstrated a running bowline knot to her under the watchful eye of a slight man with bare feet and no sleeves. “We’ll make a pirate out of you yet, lass.” She’d all but glowed.

            Lord Lindon called her precocious but, being still in mourning for his wife, had done little to curb her behavior. That was five years ago.

            Lizzie lays two cards down and takes two more from the top of the pile. “Your turn.”

            In fairness to Lord Lindon, Sidonie should not be teaching a girl of sixteen to gamble, but as her husband had once pointed out – one never knows when a less traditional education will prove useful. It is a thin excuse (and Laurent had been fifteen and trying to talk her into a drinking contest). In truth she likes Lizzie, and watching her relieve her snotty older cousin of twenty pounds made her happy, and that was enough.

            “Stop smiling, Sid. You’re not supposed to give away your hand.”

            Sidonie doesn’t take any cards. “Oh have I?” Her hand is worthless.

            “Yes, you’re smiling!”

            Sidonie only grins wider. “How much are you willing to bet on that?”

            They are using buttons in place of coin, and Lizzie scowls at her from across her pile.

            There is a sudden loud bang followed by another round of pistol fire and the clash of steel, and the two ladies immediately forget their cards.

            “Do you think…?” No, Sidonie does not think they are saved, that the other sailors managed to come back from the brink of defeat to overtake their attackers. Whatever they may be, these pirates are skilled.

            Not long after, they hear the heavy clomping of boots through the hall, and Lizzie scoops the cards together. The cat has not been forgotten.

            The latch to their door clicks before Lizzie reaches it, and one of the pirates – the tall blond tree – looms in the doorway, bloody and blacked and with a look in his eyes that scares her. She’s met enough soldiers to know what they want after a battle, so when the door opens, Sidonie keeps her back to the wall and her hands loose. She is both relieved and terrified when Lizzie, oblivious, sweeps around him to find the cook’s cat, leaving her alone but for the heavy lantern that sits on the floor between their hammocks.

            He stares at her, and she is certain he can see her thoughts, just as she is certain of their futility. There is nothing she could do against this man. His voice though, when he speaks, is incongruous with his wild appearance, even and solid over the commotion outside.

            “You’ve no need to fear, Madame, the danger is past.” If her breath were not held in anticipation of attack, Sidonie might have laughed. Right now all she sees is that he’s closed the door behind him and is removing the wide leather straps that hold his pistols and sword. When he reaches for his belt, she tenses, fingers jerking towards the heavy iron lantern.

            He only untucks his knife, still in its sheath, and sets it on the floor behind him atop the sword and pistols. There is a single, small table between the hammocks, more a stool that they use as a table, and he levers himself slowly down onto it. Sidonie half expects it to collapse.

            “You can sew,” he says and sets his right arm across his knee.

            A raw mess of half-congealed blood and rent flesh gleams in the lanternlight. The leather cuff he wears is nearly sheared off, and had it not been for that his hand might be as well. More’s the pity, she thinks, peeling herself away from the wall. Never mind they have a ship’s surgeon (the idea is laughable even as it occurs to her) to take care of this sort of thing. Still.

            He reaches behind him for his knife and passes it to her hilt first to cut off the remainder of the cuff. Sidonie waves it off in favor of a pair of shears, which she fetches from her trunk. Then she must make her peace with ruining a handkerchief to clean the wound. There’s an old one with fraying lace and a soot spot. She’ll miss that one the least.

            The gouge is six inches long, and he was lucky enough for a clean slice. If only she were lucky enough that he had bathed first, she thinks, leaning closer to see in the dim light. The mixture of sweat, blood, and smoke now permeating the tiny room is abominable, and out of consideration for her stomach, Sidonie is forced to breathe through her mouth. A small blessing that lunch was hours ago.

            Despite her revulsion, she works carefully, wetting the rag (it can no longer be called a kerchief) in her water cup (which she will not drink from again, ever) before gently scraping away the caked blood. Practically speaking, there is no telling what gratitude for a job well done with minimal pain might buy her in the future, and she has precious little capital here, will have even less if they find out how little she is truly worth. That finished, Sidonie takes a needle from her sewing box and blackens it over the lantern flame.

            The wound continues to bleed slowly but steadily as she sews, and Sidonie must pause frequently to wipe her fingers lest they become too slippery. The sewing she does as quickly as possible and not for his sake. The sight and sensation of pushing a needle through flesh curdles her stomach nearly as much as his stench. It would be faster if the hammock didn’t rock so much. How fortunate for them both that the seas are calm. The pirate, for his part, bears her reluctant ministrations in relative silence, holding the lantern above her, though the light sways with each stab of her needle.

            After the last stitch is tied off he raises his hand up, squinting. “Thank you.”

            “You’re welcome, Mr…”

            “Billy.”

            “Well.” She refuses to give him the intimacy of first names. “You’re welcome.” It’s a lie. He’s welcome to get himself properly killed next time. _Good will_ , Sidonie reminds herself, and she stops him when he rises. “You’ll need to wrap it. Do you have any honey? To keep the infection out,” she explains.

            “Honey is a luxury.”

            “And do you consider having your hand a luxury?” Honey also hurts far less than spirits, and that cut is deep.

            He dips the cloth in her water cup and dabs more oozing blood from the back of his wrist before holding up both hands. The uninjured one is covered in someone else’s blood, and Sidonie swallows down the sudden roll in her stomach that has nothing to do with the boat. “I do have two, as you can see.”

            She ignores the tired, pathetic attempt at humor, if that’s what it can be called. There is nothing charming about any of these men. And if this one loses a hand because he can’t be bothered to care for it properly then it’s hardly her concern. He passes her a flask of rum and winces when she splashes it over the wound – twice for good measure – and her day is improved for it. Then she must waste yet another of her handkerchiefs to make a bandage.

            “Is that...?” He gestures behind her with his good hand, and Sidonie looks away from the kerchief she was cutting into strips. It takes her a full twenty seconds to realize he’s pointing at her book. It had slid down against her hip.

            “Yes, it’s –”

            “The Odyssey.” Sidonie stares.

            “You read,” she finally blurts, taken aback. The captain had mentioned that there were other educated men on the ship, but she’d taken that to be more a show of pride than truth. How a man of letters, let alone one familiar with Greek classics, joined a pirate crew is a mystery, but she dismisses the thought just as quickly as it strikes her. His reasons do not matter. Whatever they were, they were not the choices of a good or moral man.

            “Yes.” And without her permission he reaches for the book, and she barely resists the urge to squirm when his hand comes close. “I read it when I was younger.” If it were not for _good will_ Sidonie would snatch it back from his soiled, bloody, thieving fingers. “One of my favorites. Would you mind if I borrowed it? When you’re done of course.”

            _Good will_ , she reminds herself again, _good will_ , and shapes her expression into something passably pleasant. “Of course.” Because she doesn’t have a choice, not truly. Though she will take her time with it, if only to spite him, and perhaps if she is lucky he will forget he ever asked.

o.O.o

            The navy never careened their own ships. Every few months they’d haul the Gloucester into a dry dock and wait for the job to be done for them. Most of the crew had the liberty of whatever port town they were in and would take the free days to whore and gamble. For those like him, who had been ‘reluctant’ to enter the service, it was always a long, boring week confined to the barracks. Not that he’d’ve had wages to whore or gamble away anyways.

            Now, even with all that’s happened, careening is one of his favorite parts of being on the Walrus. It’s a lot more work than lazing around with your thumbs up your ass, sure, but it’s honest work with an honest reward after.

            The sun isn’t quite down, but the beach is scattered with firepits and raucous laughter, and most have a game of dice or cards. Purses are shoved under jackets or legs as he passes, and Billy has no doubt there will be more than one squabble in the morning over someone cheating, but it’ll be handled quietly, kept out of the captain’s notice.

            This time they are in no hurry to chase after treasure, and they have four barrels of oranges and enough rum to drown in (and it looks like a few are aiming to try). Raiding on land is a risky affair, and they’ve had to strike quickly, but it’s been good to them as well. They’ve been eating a bit less salt pork and hard tack and more chicken and apples.

            Billy continues on past James and Beauchamp who are red in the face and throwing knives at a palm tree (and who everyone stays well clear of because they drink faster than most and hold less of it), past Denny who hands him a bottle of rum (because he’s “not drinking and ought to”), and on past Joji who he gives the rum to (because he’s not drinking either). The western end of the beach is quiet, and the solitary tent pitched far from the merriment of the campfires is dark. Not even the dim flicker of a candle flame. Miss Lindon and Madame Lauxenne brought their dinner back to their tent, as is their custom, and no one ever sees hide nor hair of either once the sun sets.

            Past the lone tent is the hulking silhouette of the Walrus, nearly invisible in the dark. The breeze is gentle, and he can’t hear a single creak from rope or wood, but that doesn’t stop him from checking the knots and moorings. Can’t be too careful.

            Satisfied it’ll all hold together, Billy makes his slow way back to camp, peeling a banana as he goes. This lot would fair gut a man for bringing a banana near their ship, but there were a few trees just beyond the beach, and he hasn’t had one since the last time they were in Nassau. Billy takes his time, an unhurried amble back across the sand, and makes sure to toss the peel deep into a thick clump of bushes before he comes within spitting distance of the nearest fire. No one need be the wiser.

            The captain’s open-sided tent is in the center of the beach a few yards back from the high tide line and lit by two braziers that put off an uncomfortable amount of heat considering the season. Flint and Silver stand together, heads bent intently over the map, and Billy waits until they’re finished before he approaches. Conversations tend to drag longer when the two of them are together, and he prefers to keep things with Flint short. They look to be arguing.

            Someday, someday, he reminds himself, like a promise, Flint will be no longer be a necessary evil, and the day will come when Billy no longer bears the obligation to prop him up against the world’s woes. The raids make it easier, simpler. When they put into shore in a town and find the body of a pirate displayed in a gibbet the twisting anger in his gut burns for someone else. The magistrate. The townspeople who believe the magistrate when he declares the man in the gibbet as less than a man. Hume. England. Always England. But in the moments of quiet, when he sees Flint in close conversation with Silver and remembers when another man once stood in Silver’s place, a good man, kind and honorable, and why that man no longer stands anywhere at all, the quiet becomes tangled and loud. Someday. Three years of forced labor to the navy and who knows how many months spent at Hume’s mercy. Billy is nothing if not patient.

            Flint makes a mark on the map, and Billy watches Silver head off to the nearest fire. He’s always slower at the end of the day, heavier in his gait, but right now it’s Flint whose mouth is drawn tightly into a line, and Billy knows that means Silver won whatever was between them. That knowledge goes a fair way towards bolstering his spirits. Every victory is a chip, slowly but surely eroding the notion that Flint is indispensable. Someday.

            “Captain.” Billy pads through the sand to the edge of the table. “The first half of the hull is nearly done, but De Groot found a patch of dry rot in the bow. Needs to be seen to.” A quick glance down at the table. A fresh gleam of ink shines on the southern edge of the Carolina territories. _What’s in Carolina?_ “It’ll probably take –” as his gaze shifts back up from the map he’s caught by the unfamiliar sight of lace, and the first thought to mind is _Why the fuck’s there a whore in the Captain’s tent?_ Because he’s never seen Flint with a whore, not once.

            But whores don’t have their hair done up like that, clean and neat. He hadn’t recognized her with her hair tied back. Madame Lauxenne looks away from him, down at the map, and –

            Right. Billy redirects his attention to the matter at hand. “It’ll probably take an extra half a day to clear it out and replace the planks, and we’ll have to send some men inland for wood.”

            “See it’s done, and,” Flint looks toward the tent at the eastern end of the beach that Billy had made sure was _far_ away from the one near the Walrus, “without any unnecessary detours.”

            “Sir,” and with a nod he takes his leave. Madame Lauxenne’s eyes have not left the map.

            This time when someone passes him a bottle he keeps it, taking a thirsty swig before seating himself between De Groot and Silver. There’s more noise coming from around the fires, more rosy cheeks. A lot more noise coming from the eastern tent. By this time of night, no one bothers to hide the dice. The knot in his chest he always gets after talking to Flint begins to loosen.

            Billy catches Silver’s eye and jerks his chin at the Captain’s tent. “What does he have her in there for?”

            Silver glances back over his shoulder. “Mr. Hornby, one of Rogers’ investors, has mills in the colonies. Plenty of them are on the coast – makes it easy to ship the goods.” A tilt of his head. “Also makes them easy to hit.”

            _Ah._ “And if we bleed him we can bleed Rogers, force Hornby to call in his debts.”

            “Exactly. And she’s,” he gestures with the bottle, “telling us where they are.”

            Billy takes another pull. “Does she know that’s what you’re planning?”

            “I doubt it, but she’s only given us one. Says she barely knows Hornby or his affairs, and that the one in Beaufort is only a guess since he has a house there.”

            “And you think she’s lying.”

            “Well I don’t think she likes us very much.”

            “You once told Flint that a lot could change in a few weeks, and he wanted to kill you at the time if I recall. Now you’re our quartermaster. I’d wager charming a little information out of a lady should be no trouble at all.”

            “Do one thing right and all of the sudden everyone has expectations.”

            Billy huffs into the bottle before downing the last swallow. “Way of the world.”

            “Aye, way of the world.”

o.O.o

            Land is disorienting in its stillness after so long spent bobbing up and down on the water. Sometimes when she closes her eyes, floating just this side of sleep, Sidonie could swear she feels herself rocking. Nothing is quiet anymore. There is either the creaking groan of a ship or the crash of waves on sand, and it seems the moment she is used to one, God sees fit to give her the other.

            Lying in the dark, kept awake by the rhythmic crash of waves, Sidonie fingers the spine of her book and wishes it wouldn’t disturb Lizzie to light a candle. She’s a quarter of the way through The Tempest. The Odyssey now sits at the bottom of her trunk under some petticoats, hidden away.

            _A press-gang._ That’s what the captain had said. _‘I suppose they found it funny, snatching him and leaving only the pamphlets for his parents to find.’_

            Her fingers still their restless wandering, and she turns onto her back with a sigh. Judging by the amount of moonlight streaming into their tent it’s a good thing it’s not raining; the canvas looks to have been gnawed on by rats and would leak horribly.

            _William Manderly._ _Kensington. Billy Bones._ She closes her eyes, trying to piece the three together, but the edges refuse to fit. Though it does solve the mystery of the lettered pirate. He is, she supposes, a shade less coarse than most of them.

            _Three years._ Sidonie would like to say that he deserved such a fate, but the man he is now had not yet been formed, and most likely never would have been except for the cruelty he suffered. She wonders what she would have done if she’d been given the chance to face the man who took Laurent from her. _You_ were _given the chance, but you ran. As you should have_ , another voice rebuts. Long habit and the pang of memory has Sidonie reaching for the space on her hand where her wedding ring used to sit. But her finger is bare now, and the pang sharpens momentarily in a way that it hasn’t in years. At least _she_ hadn’t turned to murder.

            Shifting back onto her side, she wriggles, trying to smooth out the lumpy sand under the thick blanket. The thought is not nearly as comforting as it ought to be.

o.O.o

            It took an extra day more than he’d predicted to repair the forward hull. Good wood doesn’t grow too near the beach – it needs fresh water and darker earth – and cutting it down and lugging that much back was no small task. And De Groot had said if they were going to replace the bow then they may as well do the same for a patch on the starboard side. Better to get it done now than in three months.

            The sun has just begun its descent, and his stomach has just begun complaining of how long it’s been since he last filled it, so Billy sets the saw atop the pile of new-cut planks and calls for the others to do the same. He wades into the surf to rinse the sawdust and grit from his hands. If he weren’t starving he’d dunk the rest of himself in as well, maybe go for a swim trousers and all.

            It’s been at least two weeks since he healed enough that saltwater no longer stings, and near on a week since he picked out the stitches, but the scar across the back of his right hand is still red, a hard ridge of flesh that pulls too much when he bends his wrist. Good luck kept the wound from festering, but Madame Lauxenne had made her stitches tight, like a seamstress instead of a doctor, and the skin healed too stiffly. Not a good thing to have in a fight, and he’ll have to look to it soon if he doesn’t want the condition to become permanent.

            He’s drying his hands on his shirt when someone calls out from behind him.

            “Mr. Manderly.” No one’s called him ‘Manderly’ in ages; he became Billy the moment he became a part of the Walrus. Billy turns around to find Madame Lauxenne waiting a few paces back from the edge of the waterline with a book tucked under one arm. Won’t wear a hat but fussy about getting her shoes wet. “I believe you asked to borrow this.” She holds the book out between them.

            “I –” It takes a moment for the gold-pressed letters on the cover to jog his memory. Fuck, he’d forgotten he’d even asked. “Yes. I did. Thank you.” He swipes his hands over his shirt once more before taking it from her. “I’ll look after it.”

            No sooner is it out of her hands than she’s turned, sweeping her long skirts out from her feet as she retreats back over the dunes to drier land. She’s wearing blue today, to match the sky, and her hair is down again like he’s used to.

            An elbow jams into his ribs, sharp but not too sharp.

            “Won’t visit the fuck tent, but you think you’re going to be able to stick it in a lady like her?” _Oh, fuck’s sake._ Dooley’s giving him the same look they all do when someone mentions fucking. “You’ll have better luck with the fuck tent. Them’s a sure thing. Them’s,” he points his nose at the two women across the sand, “ain’t gonna happen.” Dooley claps him on the shoulder. “Try the fuck tent. It’ll do ya a world of good. That’s a promise.”

            Billy says nothing – there’s nothing he can say – just kicks off the wet sand caked to his boots and walks back up the beach to camp. A full plate of pork and a couple of oranges is what would do him good right now, but it wouldn’t do to return her book with grease-stained pages. He has a wooden box – ash, with bronze clasps and the image of a stag worked into the lid – that he got as part of his share from one of their land raids a few months back. He can keep it there.

            Billy glances back towards the other end of the beach and the sway of bright blue. Dooley sees him looking, mouths _fuck tent_ , and points. Denny and James have cottoned on as well and add their own encouragement – in the form of lewd gestures. They mean well, all of them. They do. He ignores them and continues walking. His stomach grumbles again, urging him not to dawdle.

            It occurs to Billy, once he’s stowed her book in the ash-and-bronze box and is licking the last of the pork drippings from his fingers, that he had never told her that his name was Manderly.


	3. A sail without wind

            Everyone thinks they have sea-legs until a storm hits. Most of their new recruits are from merchant vessels, a few like himself from navy ships, but all of them have been on boats long enough to be used to the sea and all her moods.

            “Please. If I could just be allowed a little fresh air –”

            Madame Lauxenne is greener than the slime that sticks to the bottom of docks, so by Billy’s best guess she’s only ever been a passenger on fair seas. She looks about to be sick at any moment. He just hopes it’s not on his boots.

            The sails are tied down, and with nothing to do but wait out the rest of it, Billy had been on his way back down to the hold, eager for a dry change of clothes. Denny would probably have his fiddle out – always a treat. Madame Lauxenne had been on her way up, the full opposite of where anyone ought to be in a gale like this.

            “No.” It’s not a ship-killer, but it’s nothing to laugh at either.

            If he were a betting man, Billy would wager Madame Lauxenne must have lived in England for a long time, years at least, before sailing to the colonies. Her accent, while still unmistakably French, is light. Now, however, swaying with the rolling rise and plunge of the ship, white knuckles clutching the rails, it has grown noticeably thicker, and she injects words he cannot understand. Though he’s fair sure by the tone that _espece de connard_ is not something you expect to hear from a lady. In fact, he’s also sure he’s heard DuBois say the same thing when he talks about the French navy.

            “I demand you let me pass.” On even ground Madame Lauxenne barely reaches his shoulder. Standing one stair below him, she’s level with his stomach. It does nothing to dull her determination.

            Billy sighs and keeps his arm braced firmly across the door. She’s not scared anymore, leastways not of him. He’s never seen Madame Lauxenne allow anyone save her cousin within three feet of her, but now there’s barely an inch between them as she cranes around him to see the deck outside. This close, even in the grey of the storm he can see that her eyes are too round, the edges too white. It’s more than just air she wants. Some men get like that, especially the first time. They get to feeling trapped being tossed between four walls, and it makes them stupid to get free. He’d been like that once, after they took him, and it didn’t take a storm to make him feel that way either. You get over it or you go mad.

            “Have you ever been on a ship in a storm like this?” They crest a wave, and a flood of cold water slides over the threshold and into his boots. Billy bites down a curse.

            “No.” Just as he thought.

            Billy takes a step down, ducking to put his face level with hers. “Then believe when I tell you it’s not safe to go up there. One good wave or a roll or a foot in the wrong place and you’ll be overboard with nothing any of us can do to stop it. No one wants to die like that. You stay down here, and you’ll be safe.”

            He shouldn’t have said ‘die.’ Her eyes go wider at that. “I promise I’ll be careful, I’ll just stand by the door. Please.” _For fuck’s sake._ He could tell her not to stick her hand in a fire, and she wouldn’t believe it’d burn her until it did.

            Her eyes flutter, and she covers her mouth with a handkerchief, and Billy almost – almost – relents and agrees to let her stay ‘just by the door’. But then he’d have to stay too.

            “Look,” He doesn’t have the patience for this anymore. She’s not stupid enough for him to put up with her idiocy. “I know you hate me, but we won’t let anything happen to you. We can’t. I’ve served on four different ships, and I’ve seen all kinds of weather, so I know what I’m talking about. Go back down where it’s _safe_.”

            She swallows hard, opening her eyes. “I don’t hate you.” He blinks. Her voice is quiet and exhausted and barely audible above the creak of wood and howling wind “I –” The ship pitches portside and so does she, and Billy has to steady himself against the doorframe. She nearly trips backwards down the stairs but for him catching her wrist.

            Her hand is small and freezing. _Cold hands and a warm heart._ That’s what da said, and always while giving his mother a soft look meant to make her forget he’d gotten printing ink on her tablecloth. Usually worked too.

            Madame Lauxenne jerks her hand back so quickly she nearly loses her footing again, but Billy only lets go once she’s got a firm hold on the railing with her other.

            “Come on,” he coaxes, “the rest of the crew is drinking in the hold. They wouldn’t be doing that if we were in danger.”

            He can see her will crumple, a hard breath out. “Not the hold,” is all she says.

            Billy keeps behind her the whole way back down just in case. The going is slow – Madame Lauxenne needs two steps for every one of his and has far less experience walking on unpredictably moving ground. She stumbles more than once, and Billy offers his hand. She doesn’t take it. He didn’t expect her to.

            She stops just outside her cabin, and Billy knows she doesn’t want him there. Her heart had nearly stopped when he came to get his hand sewn up; it was like tiptoeing around a cornered bird. But he can’t leave her alone either, so he opens the door and follows her inside and sits propped against the open door in his soaking wet shirt and his soaking wet trousers and his boots full of water while she retreats to the opposite end of the tiny room – as far away as she can possibly get – and sinks into a corner, feet curled up under her skirts.

            “I don’t suppose,” she closes her eyes and lets her head fall back against the wall, “that you keep any ginger in your stocks?”

            “Ah, no.” He pats his belt. “I’ve got some rum though.” Rum that would be better enjoyed listening to Denny’s fiddle and whatever tavern song they can all remember the most words to.

            Madame Lauxenne starts to shake her head then winces, swallowing. “No, thank you.”

            Silence stretches, long and achingly slow, made even more torturous by the way his sodden clothes cling uncomfortably with every movement.

            Billy’s eyes wander over the room. A few rolls of paper lie in one corner, tippled over and rolling back and forth between the side of a trunk and the wall. A deck of cards has spilled across the floor. He picks one up. The queen of spades. She has a fleur de lis on her dress, and the back is painted in the pattern of a stained-glass window, riotously bright even in the dimness of a storm-tossed ship.

            Madame Lauxenne clears her throat, and Billy drops the card. But her eyes are still closed, breathing measured with effort. “Lizzie…is she…?”

            “She’s in the hold. Last I saw she was attempting to teach some of the men whist.”

            “ _Mon Dieu._ ” A wisp of a smile pulls briefly at her mouth, and Billy suspects that if her eyes were not closed she’d have rolled them. “And they’re letting her?”

            He decides if he’s going to be stuck here he may as well take off his boots. “Most of them incline more towards Loo than parlor games, but they’re always happy to oblige a lady.”

            A weak huff. “You wouldn’t know it to look at her now,” she speaks slowly, vowels thickening, and Billy leans forward, elbows on knees, straining to hear her over the storm, “but she was shy once.”

            That startles him. Not that Miss Lindon used to be shy, but that Madame Lauxenne has told him of it. Of the handful of words she’s spoken to him – to any of the crew – not one has invited conversation.

            “You’re close,” he says finally, cautiously, for wont of anything else.

            “I practically raised her.” There is possession in her tone, pride too, and Billy wonders less at how long it has taken her to let Miss Lindon roam the ship alone.

            “Is that why you moved to London then?” he presses lightly.

            She opens her eyes a slit to look at him askance. “Yes.”

            He rubs at the back of his neck. This is new, fragile like a spider’s web. “It’s just…your accent. It’s not so strong, so I thought…”

            Her face smooths out again. “I grew up in Calais. It was practically half-English to begin with. London was no great adjustment.” She pushes back, sitting a little straighter. “I am told you are from London, Mr. Manderly.”

            Still refuses to call him Billy. It chafes, though he can’t put his finger on why. He wants to ask her who told her his name and where he’s from, and what else she knows about his past, but neither does he want to put her off with an interrogation. He doesn’t want to discourage this sudden willingness to talk, confusing as it is.

            “Yes, Kensington.” He gathers the cards together, stacks them carefully inside their paper box.

            Madame Lauxenne nods slowly, and he can’t tell if she already knew that bit. “There was a bakery in Kensington – on Brompton street I think – they made canelé. It was almost like home.”

            He’s not sure what that is – outside of it being French – but he doesn’t want to ask. She’d been surprised enough when she found out he could read. Her eyes drift closed again.

            “How old were you when you left?” There’s the barest hint of hesitation, so he is certain she was told the circumstances of his leaving.

            “Seventeen,” And because he has no wish to revisit the subject he asks, “Do you miss Calais?”

            It was the wrong thing to ask. One eye opens to peer back at him. “Do you miss London?”

            _“Billy!”_

            Silver’s voice, followed by the metallic thud of his new foot. Billy shoves quickly to his feet, all too happy for an excuse to avoid answering. “Will you be alright, Madame?” It’s a struggle getting his feet back into wet boots. He forgets not to curse.

            _“Billy!”_

            “I won’t go up to the deck, if that’s what you mean.”

            It wasn’t, but Silver is waiting, so he accepts it all the same.

o.O.o

            His hands are red and raw and his shoulders will ache into next week, but the upper main and fore t’gallants have been replaced, casualties of the storm and weak knots.

            The sun is back and a strong nor’easter will see them out of Spanish waters in less than a week. Three days skirting around the edge of Cuba before turning due south toward Tortuga. Someone claims to have spotted dolphins, though with this lot it’s just as likely to have been tuna. But he’s not one to begrudge a harmless flight of fancy, especially when it lifts their spirits.

            The swift clip of shoes sounds behind him, and Billy turns his head to see Miss Lizzie (the crew has taken to calling her Miss Lizzie instead of Miss Lindon) skipping up the stairs to the quarterdeck.

            “Sid!”

            Billy twists farther, and there is Sid – Madame Lauxenne – face turned into the wind like a flower to the sun. The sight stills him – until now he’s never seen her relaxed.

            “Sid!” Miss Lizzie is waving something small and colorful over her head. He recognizes the box of cards.

            Madame Lauxenne turns to her cousin, and Billy looks down at his hands, soaking in a bucket of cold water. He wonders what canelé is.

o.O.o

            He’s just come off first watch and is more hungry than tired. Maybe if he’s lucky there’s still a bit of mutton left.

            The galley is empty but for a bright shock of green in the corner, silver-green like the junipers that grew outside his parents’ house. Billy nearly mistakes her for Miss Lizzie at first, but the black cascade around her shoulders, held loosely on one side by a wooden comb gives her away. Miss Lizzie’s hair is yellow as summer straw.

            Madame Lauxenne doesn’t look away when he catches her eye, so Billy sets his plate across from her. He cuts his meat into smaller pieces than normal and realizes he has no idea what to say.

            “I never see you here.” It comes out uncertain, and he could kick himself for it.

            “There is only so much needlework one can take before one goes completely mad.”

            Only needlework he’s ever done is mending sails, which isn’t relevant. Nor interesting. The lantern above the table swings lazily back and forth with the ship. It needs oiling, he notes, the squeak of metal only enhancing the silence that hangs awkwardly between them.

            “You must be happy for the fair weather,” he says at last.

            “Quite.”

            _Fuck_ , he should have taken his plate elsewhere. Or just gone to sleep. She’s not seasick anymore, so –

            “I miss anchovies.”

            Billy looks up. “What?”

            Her eyes crinkle at the corners. “You asked if I missed Calais. I miss the anchovies.”

            _Is she laughing at me?_ “You can get them in England.” His cheeks are too warm, and he hides behind his cup while they cool.

            “You English boil everything into blandness. In Calais, down by the docks they fry them in oil and salt. Crisp, full of flavor.” Her eyes glaze a bit at the memory.

            “If they did anchovies like that in London, I might’ve eaten them.”

            She sets her fork and knife at the right edge of her plate with barely a clink, and somehow it calls more attention than the clatter everyone else makes during supper. “Why didn’t you go back? To England, I mean.” Her words are considered, careful. “You only take volunteers. They would have let you go, but you chose to stay.” She pulls her hands down into her lap. “Your family must miss you.”

            Billy busies himself with his knife and fork. The truth is that he’d rather they think him dead, that they’ve mourned him and the passage of years has dulled their pain. A smaller, deeper part of him wants them to hope as he wishes he could.

            Instead he says, “I don’t want to go back,” because that’s also the truth. “We’re free out here. Free to come and go as we please, and no man sets himself above the rest.” None save Flint, but the rest he can call brother and mean it.

            Her face shifts suddenly, the way the air does just before a storm. “Freedom.” Her voice is chilly. “I would not know what that feels like.”

            Billy’s fork hovers in place in front of his mouth before dropping back down, forgotten.

            She rises abruptly. “I beg your pardon. It is late, and I must find my cousin.”

            For all her cumbersome skirts she moves quickly, a flurry of yellow and ribbons headed for the door. Billy pushes to his feet, the backs of his knees knocking against the bench as he calls after her. “Have you ever been a slave?” It shouldn’t matter, but it does. He’s had the last word too few times lately.

            She takes another step, and for a moment he’s sure she’ll pretend not to have heard. But then she stops, toes just inside the door, and pivots reluctantly to face him.

            “No.” Her voice is guarded, and everything about her posture and stance gives the impression of a rabbit ready to bolt.

            He is tired of her fear. Sick to death of it. They are not the monsters in the nightmares of the civilized world. _You have no cause to –_ He takes a breath to calm the heat in his belly.

            “You’ve been a prisoner for a week short of two months.” He speaks through his teeth. “We have done as well by you as circumstances allow. You _do_ know what freedom feels like. I know what freedom feels like. All of these men do, though some didn’t know it until they joined us. We treasure our freedom because we also know what it’s like to have it ripped away.”

            She says nothing, still as a statue. Her fingers are pressed to the frame, as if it could shield her, and Billy realizes he is still gripping his knife.

            He sets it slowly on the table, but the damage is done. The last time he felt so thoroughly useless he was in irons and Vane had just stolen his ship. All his words have been for naught. Impotent. Like a bullet without powder or a sail without wind.

            “You should find your cousin.”

            “Thank you.” It feels like a slap, and she is gone, quicker than dust on a breeze.


	4. Cards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter brought to you by the letter C for my shameful overuse of the word 'cards'. Also, this was supposed to be 2K words.

            There is no light when she wakes, no sound. Odd. Laurent once complained that she would wake for nothing less than god, the devil, or fire claxons.

            She rolls onto her side, eyes already slipping closed again. The slow rumble of thunder, distant, hardly loud enough t –

            Sidonie starts, half flying, half falling out of her hammock. Not thunder. Cannons. And close enough that she feels the impact and hears the crunch of splintering wood. There are bruises on her knees, but she’ll care about those later. By design (she assumes) the two ladies have never been on the side of the ship facing battle. And the crew doesn’t attack at night (except on land). This was not planned. She scrambles the short distance across the floor and gives Lizzie’s shoulder a rough shake. No time to be gentle.

            Another volley, closer this time – far too close – and Lizzie screams.

            “Your shoes! Now!” Sidonie is already groping blindly for her own. No time to be gentle, no time for light.

            It is dark as pitch in the narrow hallway outside their cabin, but one blessing of having spent ‘a week short of two months’ (a bit more than that now) aboard the Walrus is that she is confident enough to feel her way around. She can also feel and hear the near constant vibration of cannon fire hitting the ship. Lizzie’s hand grips hers like a vise, and Sidonie realizes that for all her hopes of rescue, she has never before had to consider what it might mean if a ship attacked without that intent.

            She feels her way along the wall, pulling Lizzie with her until they see light.

           It only occurs to her when they are already to close and can smell the smoke that it is now _too_ bright below decks.

           “Oh God.” Lizzie’s eyes are white and large as dinner plates, and her hold on Sidonie’s hand becomes painful. She can see the path up, but it hardly matters. They’ll sink. The thought is paralyzing but only for as long as it takes Lizzie to yank her towards the stairs.

           The deck is utter chaos. No clash of swords or small puffs of pistol smoke. Instead the smoke hangs over them in a solid, dark cloud, a roiling shadow above the flames. They aren’t moving, she realizes. Sidonie coughs, eyes tearing. She hasn’t so much as a handkerchief to put over her mouth. The whole of the stern looks to be afire, great streams reaching into the sky along the rigging, and there is nowhere to go, nothing she can do. _Que Dieu nous sauve_ , she prays without hope.

           There are yells – some unintelligible screams of pain, some shouted orders of _fire!_ – they are still fighting, though the number of cannons that fire from their side are too few. Another volley hits, tearing through the already tattered rails. Another soon after – too soon, she realizes. They are flanked on both sides, trapped, penned in for the slaughter.

           “Sid!” Lizzie is pulling her elbow, and she turns. The fire is behind them now as well. Men come rushing out from below at a full tilt.

            _“Abandon ship!”_ They do not stop. _“Abandon ship!”_ If she’d had her head, Sidonie would have run with them, but reason is the first casualty of chaos.

            _I should have had Lizzie pack a bag_ , she thinks idly, huddled against the mast. They’ve only the clothes on their backs and the shoes on their feet.

           The cry goes up, _Abandon ship!_ Men dive over the sides, scrambling over rails or through the gaps.

           “Sid!” Her tears are not only from the smoke.

           Lizzie cannot swim.

           Sidonie looks around. There is broken wood everywhere; they only need large enough pieces.

           “Come on –”

           A violent, thunderous explosion rips through the back end of the ship, and Sidonie realizes too late why the men ran without stopping, why the rest listened without question. The magazine and all its powder. She and Lizzie had stayed away from the edges, fearful of being hit, but when the deck tilts suddenly under them there is nothing to grab onto. Lizzie shrieks.

           She could not have stopped it if she’d tried. And she does. One hand scrabbling for purchase against the rough deck, splinters gouging under her nails and the other outstretched and grasping at air. Sidonie slams into a barrel, and Lizzie slips through a gap in the rails, quiet and quick as a waterdrop. Gone.

            If her heart beat in those seconds she never felt it. She must have breathed because she screams.

            Sidonie had Julien for a big brother. She knows exactly what it’s like to be thrown in the sea, petticoats, stays, and all, and has, on many occasion, floundered her way back to shore, bedraggled but otherwise unharmed. The first time though…she’d sunk straight down, panicked and thrashing against the weight and bulk of her skirts. She’d thrown a rock at his head for it after.

            Sidonie claws her way to the rail, leaning far enough out that she nearly goes over the edge herself. She can’t see anything in the darkness. There is a rope. It’s fastened to…another rope. Good enough. Her heart pounding, Sidonie wraps one end thrice around her wrist and clambers up onto the railing. She is just bending her knees, ready to jump, when arms like iron lock around her middle, and she is not just lifted, but _flung_ , backwards with enough force to wind her.

           “Get her on a fucking boat!” The rope around her wrist is yanked free, burning savagely as it goes. _Nonono, je t’en prie, Dieu –_

            More hands grab at her, pulling her arms, but Sidonie scrambles back, turning just in time to see a blond head disappear over the side and into the dark water below.

o.O.o

            She is alone.

            They wrestled her into a jolly boat, meant to hold ten men but now crammed with at least twice that, and all she can do is pray as they float in the dark. The Spanish (or so they told her), destruction complete, have departed, leaving them to swim or die. It is a long way to shore.

            The jolly boat went into the water on the starboard side, Lizzie on the port. There had been an argument, short but harsh, about whether to row around the ship and search or to wait where Mr. Manderly would have to swim past on the way to land. For a few tense seconds, Sidonie is afraid it will come to blows. Nothing is said about Lizzie, but it is obvious not a one of these men would leave Mr. Manderly behind. Their loyalty is surprising, but she is glad for it insofar as it provides a shred of hope of recovering Lizzie. That hope dwindles by the minute.

           They wait, and that is worse because it is doing nothing, and all she can do is continue to stare into the too-bright night. The water is all dazzling reflections and dark silhouettes; there is no middle ground with which to easily make out a person from the floating wreckage.

           A few stragglers – not Mr. Manderly or Lizzie – find the boat. There is no more room to sit, so they float in the water, clinging to the sides. Her heart leaps painfully when another boat rounds the flames, but neither Lizzie nor Mr. Manderly are passengers or hangers-on.

           There are bodies in the water, and it is a mercy when they are all both too masculine and too short. She begins to shiver.

           After an interminable amount of time there is a rustling to her right, and a man with close cropped hair and beads that don’t quite cover the scars on his neck calls out “Billy!” over the water, and for a for a moment Sidonie forgets her fury with these men, that they are at fault for everything that’s happened tonight. She plants one hand on each shoulder to either side and shoves upright, straining to see where they all look.

           A single blond head bobs above the water.

_No._

           Sidonie sways. Breathing would be easier with a knife in her ribs.

           “Ma’am.” Someone grabs her forearm, pulls her back up. “Wait.”

            Sidonie has not cried once since they were taken, not for a long time before that either; in fact she can’t recall the last occasion. Worse has befallen her, and she dealt with it as she always did – with the good sense her mother and god gave her. Finding a way was more important than finding time to mourn. But the sight of a second blond head breaking above the waves rips a sob from her throat as uncontrollable as any storm. Mr. Manderly lies half on his back, one arm wrapped around Lizzie and the other making wide strokes behind him. Her huge mass of sodden skirts slows them no doubt, but he swims steadily closer. Sidonie nearly trips over the side of the boat in her haste to pull Lizzie aboard.

            The girl – because at this moment she is a girl, not a young woman – shivers violently in Sidonie’s embrace. A hand grasps her shoulder, and Sidonie jumps. The evening has scraped her nerves raw. When she turns, one arm still tightly around Lizzie, it is to find one of the pirates holding out a blanket.

            “Prennez-le, madame.” _Take this._

            Sidonie blinks, startled. He is French. Toulouse, perhaps, from the way he rolls his r’s. She’d had no idea there were any Frenchmen among the crew. Belatedly, Sidonie takes the blanket – musty from long storage – and throws it around Lizzie’s shoulders.

            “Merci, Monsieur…”

            “DuBois.”

            He is already turning his back to her, taking up his oar when she feels another light touch on her elbow. She faces a man with almond eyes and a blood red sash. She knows his face but has no name to put to it. He passes her a flask, nodding at Lizzie. The smell is immediately identifiable as rum. Someday, god willing, she will have proper wine again. Lizzie sputters down a gulp and then another. After the fourth, Sidonie takes it and, after steadying draft herself, hands it back to its owner with her thanks. _Joji_ , she’s heard him called.

            They are crowded in close, hip to thigh with these men, yet she cannot bring herself to care. Her dress is a sodden wreck, Lizzie’s is still dripping too, and she is tired and hungry and cold, and none of it matters because Lizzie’s hand is in hers. They both shiver, less from the cold than from nerves and relief.

            The little boats sit low in the water, each with a fan of men clutching at her sides. The captain sits in the prow of one. A bald man in front of her offers Mr. Manderly his place on a bench, but he refuses, choosing instead to swim at the side.

            Sidonie wants to know when – if – they will hit land, but the men row with purpose and without discussion. All there is to do is wait.

o.O.o

            He wakes with eyes dryer than ash and a throat raw from breathing too much smoke. It’s not quite dawn – the sky is just turning pink – but without the darkness of the ship’s hold the light rouses him too early. If they still had a ship his watch would start in two hours.

           A day. They’d been a day from leaving the Cuban coast. Whether that was a blessing or a curse, he’ll never know. Maybe the Spanish wouldn’t have pursued them. Or maybe they’d all have drowned instead; one guess is as good as the next.

            Billy rolls to his feet and brushes the sand out of his collar. There’s no use speculating about what could have been. That’s a sure path to madness, and for him it’s a path lined with too many things he’d change if he could, too many ghosts. _You do the only thing you can do, and that don’t include looking to the past._ Gates’ words, just after he joined up, and they make more sense the longer he lives.

            Billy relieves himself and drinks a few cupped handfuls of water from a rock depression. It’s stale, but at least it’s not seawater and it hasn’t given anyone the shits. He’d taken a few men and rowed back out to the wreckage of the Walrus, but aside from a few floating barrels of brined beef and beer they were able to tow back there hadn’t been much else left. Some lengths of unburnt rope, a bit of wood and canvas. Joji and Dobbs brought down a boar, so they’re not on rations yet, but if they don’t find fresh water they’ll be in just as much trouble as when they were standing on a burning ship.

            Billy isn’t the first one up. Breakfast is only reheated boar from dinner (not that he’s complaining when he’s alive to eat it), and he cuts off a few chunks and takes a seat in the sand next to Silver.

            “Flint thinks we should steal another Spanish ship,” Silver says without preamble.

            Billy considers that. “Between Vane and this we’ve lost almost fifteen men and ten are too injured to fight. How does he propose we do it?”

            A wry shrug. “We did it before.” He doesn’t sound entirely convinced himself, and Billy hears Flint’s voice behind the words.

            “And look how that worked out. No one died and we all came back rich men.”

            Silver holds out a hand. “If you have a better idea, by all means.”

            Short of stumbling upon another ship… “Not yet, no. Fuck.” He sighs, scrubs a hand down his face. “We’re not gonna two chances at this.”

            “Then I guess we’ll have to make sure we do it right the first time.” They have the same dogged determination to win, he and Flint do, but Silver isn’t tainted by Flint’s reckless narcissism. And they really don’t have another way off this island.

           “We should send scouts.”

            “None of them know Spanish. It won’t go well, a couple of ragged Englishmen wandering around Baracoa.”

            “They can row around the coast, get a look at the harbor. Lot of trees on these beaches, so they’ll have cover. Send Beauclerc and Paxton. They’re not idiots and they know what to look for.”

            “Paxton was on the late watch. I’ll send them in the smaller jolly when he’s up.”

            Billy notes with satisfaction that Silver makes no mention of clearing the plan with Flint first.

o.O.o

            “It’s cold,” Lizzie complains again. She stands at the edge, arms crossed stubbornly across her middle. Her toes have not even touched the water.

            “You wouldn’t know,” Sidonie replies unsympathetically. She is already hip-deep, shift floating like a cloud about her waist. The sand is soft between her toes and the water far warmer than the channel. “Come on. In you go.”

            “I could refuse.” She liked to say the same sort of nonsense when she was ten and didn’t want to finish her dinner. Sidonie answers as she always has.

            “You’re welcome to try.” She waits. Lizzie takes a small step forward. A wave just brushes her toes.

            “It _is_ cold!”

            “You’ll get used to it.”

            “We are on land now. I don’t have to.”

            Sidonie fixes her with a look. “And when we aren’t? How do you plan on getting to Nassau?” Because they can’t stay in the Spanish colonies, and the only way off is by boat, and Lizzie _will_ learn to swim by the time they find one.

            She holds out her hand. “Just to where I am. Try. For me.”

~.~

            “I haven’t seen you speak to Billy.” Lizzie flicks a few drops of water in her face. Sidonie has coaxed her in far enough to float on her back. It is the best way to soothe a fear of water – proving you can remain near motionless and still breathe.

            “It is _Mr. Manderly_ , Lizzie,” Sidonie reprimands gently. “And that is because I haven’t.”

            “You should be kinder, Sid. He did save my life you know.” _Oh…Dieu._

            There is…a tone, and Sidonie’s stomach plummets to her feet. This is not… Oh she has been remiss in her duty. She is not – Lizzie had only been out in society a handful of months before leaving England, and this is not a complication Sidonie had expected to confront here of all places.

            “Lizzie,” she begins carefully. Addressing the romantic sensibilities of a sixteen-year-old girl requires delicacy, and she –

            “He asked after you.”

            The beginnings of her speech evaporate. “He what?”

            Lizzie grins, a cat with her paw in the canary’s cage. “He _asked_ after you.” Her expression is identical to the one Laurent wore when he informed her that one of his captains had spent the whole of supper staring at her. _I think he admires you, cherie._

            “I’m sure he did not,” Sidonie replies, rolling her eyes at this new silliness. But oh, what a profound relief though, and far easier to dismiss too.

            “I was there. You were not,” Lizzie says, as if that settles the matter.

            “Mr. Manderly was kind to ask then, and that is the extent of it I’m _sure_. And should he ask again, you may inform him that we are perfectly fine.” _Other than being marooned with an English admiral’s daughter on a Spanish island and still the captives of pirates._

            “I don’t think he was inquiring after _us_ , Sid.” _Merde alors,_ like a dog with a bone.

            Sidonie splashes a bit of water in her face before tipping her back onto her feet. “They need us, Lizzie,” she says more seriously, “That is all. Do not forget it.”

            “I know, Sid.” It is clear she doesn’t, not entirely.

            “You’ve had too much sun, Miss Lizzie. It’s addled your brains.” Sidonie pushes herself through the water towards shore. “And your father will be quite cross with me if I return you to him looking like old shoe-leather.”

            “Oh I don’t know.” Lizzie spashes loudly along next to her. “Maybe it will make me look dashing, well-traveled. Don’t you think?” More splashing. “Like Captain Flint.”

            Sidonie chokes.

o.O.o

            No gambling and no fighting. Those are the laws on the sea. But now that they’re ashore and restless there’s little else to keep the crew entertained. But the first inevitably begets the latter, and land is where grievances are meant to be settled, and tempers are already short, and Billy has spent too much of his day settling brawls, so when Miss Lizzie hands him two plates instead of one and says sweetly, “Could you please?” he’s only too happy to trudge away from the fires and the noise to the quiet part of the beach. Billy’s tired and not from work.

            Madame Lauxenne sits atop a fallen tree trunk, dark skirts fanned out over the sun-bleached wood. He makes sure to cough when he gets close, but she startles anyways.

           Billy holds out the plate in his left hand, a buffer. “Miss Lizzie said you hadn’t eaten.”

            Her brow furrows, twisting from surprise to suspicion and then smoothing out again in the space of a moment, and Billy steels himself, wondering _what the fuck is it now_ – but she only looks down, and he follows her gaze to the empty plate at her side.

            “Ah. My mistake.” He turns to go. “I’ll, um, leave you to it then.”

            “Mr. Manderly.” She jumps down off the log.

            The meat nearly slides off the plates when he changes direction mid-turn to face her.

            Madame Lauxenne wipes her fingers thoroughly on a square of cloth and pockets it. “I never thanked you.”

            After three days he hadn’t expected her to. “You don’t –”

            “I do,” she interrupts briskly, treading through the sand to meet him. She takes both plates and balances them carefully on the tree trunk before returning to face him, hand outstretched. He blinks.

           Billy remembers her in the doorway to the galley, ready to flee, how she turned up her nose when he offered his arm for balance. He takes her hand – she does not present it palm-down, as ladies do, for him to bow over – and shakes it. Her grip is firm, unexpected.

           “Thank you. I should have said it earlier,” she adds quietly.

           Billy isn’t naïve. It’s not absolution nor even acceptance. But this – her hand clasping his – it’s not nothing either.

           He nods. “You’re welcome.” Her fingers slip from his, and he looks for an excuse to stay. Billy clears his throat and motions to the plates of roast boar. “It’s not fried or salted, but there’s still plenty to go round. If you’re still hungry that is.”

           A smile touches one corner of her lips, brief enough he could’ve imagined it. The evening is full of surprises.

           “Thank you, Mr. Manderly, but,” she gathers her skirts and her empty plate, “I really must go have a word with my cousin.” She pauses, looking behind him. “And I daresay you’ve another scuffle to attend to.”

o.O.o

            It’s quiet when Billy wakes, unusual enough these days to shake the sleep from his eyes and put him on his feet in short order.

           He’s even more startled to see Madame Lauxenne sitting amongst the crew. She’s perched on a low rock, facing James across a half-rotted tree stump. Billy’s hand drops from the hilt of his cutlass. They’re playing cards.

            He pulls on his boots, dusts off the seat of his breeches, and, after a moment of consideration, tucks in his shirt too.

           “Billy!” Miss Lizzie waves enthusiastically at him, and Billy swipes a few strips of meat from a roasting stick on the way over (he never thought he could miss porridge). He gives her a piece, which she accepts with a smile and passes him a tin cup of beer. It’s cool to the touch, as if she’d kept it in the water, an unexpected kindness that warms him as much as the morning sun on his back. Billy takes a seat next to her and notices the large pile of swords and knives at her feet. He frowns. Most of the crew, all gathered in a semi-circle behind James, have bare belts except for their pistols.

           “Sid is winning them for me,” Miss Lizzie informs him brightly.

           He looks at Sid – Madame Lauxenne, who is sweeping together the cards. James gives up his seat to Vincent, but not before handing over his cutlass and two daggers. “I didn’t know you gambled,” he says.

           Madame Lauxenne does not look up. “I do not gamble, Mr. Manderly.” She shuffles, flipping the cards together with a swift, practiced hand and begins dealing. “Do you know what I woke up to? Do you know _when_ I woke up?”

            “Don’t pay her any mind, Billy. She’s always cross before breakfast. And _I’m_ gambling.” Billy raises an eyebrow. Miss Lizzie’s not holding any cards. “I’m betting on Sid.”

            “I woke up to the Battle of the Boyne just outside my tent,” Madame Lauxenne continues irritably. She reminds him of a cat who’s been forced to get its paws wet.

            “It was a bit…spirited,” Miss Lizzie admits. Joji is the only one who will meet his eye. And one of the few still in possession of a sword, Billy notes.

            “ _The Battle of the Boyne_.” She gathers her cards up in a fan and begins sorting them by suit and rank. “That is what I woke up to, Mr. Manderly. At barely past _dawn_.”

            She manages to sound exactly like De Groot when he finds someone coiled the ropes wrong, and somehow it’s relaxing.

            “And so they must all _earn_ their weapons back.” She rests her hands momentarily in her lap, and from his position, Billy sees that a few cards have changed when she raises them again. Madame Lauxenne is cheating. His eyes flick again to the pile. Masterfully. Miss Lizzie catches his eye and smirks.

           “I hear in France the king never loses at cards because anyone arrogant enough to beat him loses a finger.” DuBois was drunker than an Irishman at a wake when he’d said that, but Miss Lizzie giggles.

             “What sort of ignorant backwater England must be,” Madame Lauxenne replies testily, “if you all believe in old wives’ tales.”

            “Miss Lindon is English,” Billy points out, glancing to the lady in question for support, but she appears entirely unperturbed by the aspersion.

            “And she should thank her lucky stars a Frenchwoman sees to her education.”

            “It’s terribly unpatriotic, isn’t it?” Miss Lizzie adds.

            “That include letting her scuttle around the deck of a pirate ship fleecing the crew at cards?” Billy asks.

            “Fleecing implies there were bets, Mr. Manderly,” Miss Lindon interjects primly from beside him.

            “And lucky for us, else you’d have won our ship out from under us I’m told.”

            “But you have no ship. Hardly lucky.” Billy tips his head in acknowledgement. “But if you ever get your hands on another one, it’s Sid you’ll want to keep your men away from. _She’s_ tricky.”

            “I can see that,” he says pointedly, and Madame Lauxenne shoots them both a look. “I wasn’t aware a French gentlewoman’s education included gambling.”

            “I’m not gambling, sir.” He wonders at her reticence.

           “What do they get if they win?”

            “They won’t,” the two ladies answer together. “But,” Madame Lauxenne lays out her hand on the stump – a straight flush, “ _I_ shall have peace.”

            Vincent hands his sword to Miss Lizzie.

o.O.o

            “What is it?”

            “Just try it.”

            “Not if you won’t tell me what it is.”

            “I’m not trying to poison you, Sid,” she huffs.

            “I know, but,” Sidonie eyes the glistening chunks of white in Lizzie’s hand, “what _is_ it?” It looks like raw potatoes.

            “Just try it!”

            Sidonie throws up her hands in defeat. “Fine.” But she takes the smallest piece, no larger than her thumbnail. “Now. What is it?” At least it doesn’t taste like raw potato.

            Lizzie ignores her, all but bouncing forward on the balls of her feet. Her bare feet. Sidonie cannot fault the practicality, but if Lord Lindon ever finds out he’ll have her flayed. A thought that crosses her mind all too frequently lately.

            “Do you like it?” she asks.

            “If I say yes will you tell me what it is?”

            Her answering sigh is worthy of theater. “You are absolutely determined to be dull, aren’t you? It’s called a coconut.”

            Sidonie takes another piece, larger this time. “I do like it,” she admits. “Sweet but not overly so.”

            Lizzie grins, watching her chew. “He thought you might.” And she is off down the beach before Sidonie can swallow.

o.O.o

            Billy thumbs idly through the deck of cards, his attention more on the beach than what’s in his hands. He’s never had a drink before battle, plenty after, sure, but never before. Sharp as a well-kept sword edge, always. Tonight he’s had more than one, and he realizes what he already knew – that courage isn’t something found at the bottom of a bottle. James gave him a sly look the moment Billy picked up the cards, and where James walks so goes Malley, and since subtlety comes about as naturally to that pair as breathing water Billy knows that if he wants to avoid what’s coming next he’s going to have to head to his tent for the night or down to the beach.

            Anchovies and books. That’s all he knows. And cards. And Miss Lizzie. DuBois had said something the other day, made her laugh, but it was in French, so he didn’t understand.

            “So Billy –” Malley begins with a glint in his eye, and it sends him to his feet just as fast as if the sand had turned to hot coals.

            “Hunt starts early tomorrow, boys,” Billy says loudly. “Don’t lollygag and maybe we’ll finally have something besides boar for dinner.”

           For an instant his feet carry him towards the beach and the tree trunk and the woman who sits there, but he turns them around just as quickly – taking his own advice, he tells himself, to turn in early. Someone calls after him, and Billy stumbles once – not entirely a ruse – and pretends not to hear.

           He lays his head down in the sand, and when the world stops spinning there’s light in his face, cotton in his mouth, a hammer in his head, and Froom telling him to wake up and stop lollygagging about because there’s a hunt to be getting on with, and they’re all waiting on him.

o.O.o

            _“Lizzie.”_

            His lordship would drop dead of a palsy, and truth be told Sidonie is well on her way to it now.

            “Flowers and trees are so _dull_ , Sid. I would rather draw people. _Movement._ Didn’t Mr. Bryce say that the great challenge of the masters was to capture movement?”

           Sidonie grimaces. “I’m sure this is not at all what he meant.” A gaggle of bare-chested pirates hacking at each other with swords is hardly art. Nor is charcoal on rough bark.

           “This is so much more exciting though.” Sidonie is also sure more of them were covered before Lizzie came to watch. And not that she’s a swordsman, but she had never imagined duels required so many flourishes.

           Her eye picks out, all too easily, the close-cropped blond head above the fray. The same dirty green shirt and tangle of necklaces. At least he has the decency to remain clothed.

           She sees him smack the flat of his blade against Malone’s thigh (Or is it Malley? She _is_ trying to learn their names). “You’re not cutting down a tree. Here.” A prod. “Any idiot can swing a sword, but if you don’t put your feet in the right place you’re fucked.”

           Malone’s (O’Malley perhaps? No, not the right accent…) partner steps aside, and Mr. Manderly raises his blade. “Again.”

           Sidonie had a tutor once, stuffy old _pisse-froid_ with a fanatical dedication to grammar and a curious love of obscure Prussian literature. _Madame Heloise Desmarais_ would make Sidonie stand, book on head, while she spoke her declensions, and god help her if she made a single mistake. The punishment for that was to start at the beginning. _It’s not a punishment; it’s practice_ Madame Desmarais was fond of saying. She wonders what Mr. Manderly would think if she told him that he reminds her exactly of an old widow from Paris who smelled perpetually of nutmeg.

            _No other young lady will speak as well as you_ she’d say with a soft rap of her knuckles on Sidonie’s shoulder. Sidonie had done the exact same thing to Lizzie one day, proud the girl had made it through a whole chapter of _Cyrano de Bergerac_ without mangling a single ‘r’. If Laurent had been present he’d have choked laughing at her.

           “Good.” His blade taps the sand in a gesture of _on my mark_. “Again.” And again and again and again. This… He is soft on them, she realizes, and it occurs to her to wonder if Mr. Manderly left brothers or sisters behind in London as well.

           Sidonie starts at a hand on her elbow and comes face to face with Lizzie’s bemused smirk. “I said your name twice, Sid. I asked if you wanted to go swimming.”

           “That,” Sidonie says, relieved, “is the most sense you’ve shown all week.”

o.O.o

            In the end it requires no courage, bottled or otherwise. Madame Lauxenne sits down beside him in a puff of sand and petticoats and before he can say a single word explains, “Lizzie is asleep and none of your men have the nerve for a game.”

           It still takes him a moment to realize the deck in her hands is an invitation. Billy looks around to make sure no one can hear them and ducks his head a little closer to ask, “Have you considered playing fair?”

            “No.” He doesn’t know her well enough to discern if she’s being dry or serious. Maybe both.

            Billy holds out his hand. “If you let me deal.”

            Madame Lauxenne hands him the cards.

            He dares to press his luck. “And if I win I get to ask where you learned to cheat at cards.”

           “Very well.”

            “I thought you didn’t bet,” he says. Billy doesn’t have the same deft hand as she at dealing, and some of the cards stick.

            “I’m not betting. I agreed that you may ask me a question if you win a hand. I never agreed to answer.” She never said she wouldn’t.

            “Where does a proper Frenchwoman learn to cheat at poker?”

            She cocks an eyebrow, scooping up her cards. “We haven’t even begun playing.”

            “I didn’t say I would _only_ ask if I won.”

            “Fair enough,” she concedes, and though her attention is on her cards, he can see the small crinkle around her eyes. “In Calais.”

            Billy waits for the rest, but nothing else is forthcoming. “Who then?” He looks at his hand. He’s got fuck all and a sudden strong suspicion that Madame Lauxenne only agreed to let him deal because she’d already put the good cards up her sleeve.

           “My husband taught me. Well, no. He taught me to gamble; my brother taught me to cheat. Though he insisted he was ‘teaching me to win.’”

            “My Uncle was a gambler,” he ventures. “Black jack mostly. I hope your husband’s better than him.”

            “He was. They both were. Terrible trouble, the both of them.” It’s hard to ignore the way her voice turns fond.

            “Were?” Mother threatened Uncle Jack with all but death if she ever heard of him near the tables again, and it’s no stretch to imagine Madame Lauxenne doing the same.

            “They’re dead now.” She says it quickly, lightly, eyes flitting away from his. An old pain, deep and rarely spoken of.

            “You don’t wear a ring.” It falls out of his mouth to quickly to stop, another curiosity lurking at the back of his mind.

            The feigned lightness drops from her face like stone, and Billy immediately regrets the observation. He’s still learning her moods, a study on unpredictable terrain and as changeable as the weather in spring, but poorly concealed rage is nothing new.

            “You took it,” she replies flatly, and her tone implies he is being simple.

            Their pearls and jewels had fetched a pretty price, and he doesn’t feel any particular guilt that his men are better fed and armed because of it. A single plain ring on the other hand, that’s a drop in the bucket, and he’d’ve let her keep it if he’d known. Probably wouldn’t make a lick of difference to tell her though.

            “I’m sorry,” he says simply.

            Her face contorts and smooths, and Billy thinks she must have had to learn to cheat at cards only because she’s terrible at keeping her thoughts from her face. “ _That_.” A violent flush spreads down the length of her neck. “Of all the things to be sorry for – _that’s_ it?”

            The last time she spoke with such naked disapproval she’d bolted. Madame Lauxenne holds his gaze, and after an uncomfortable stretch Billy realizes she is waiting for an answer. Stubborn thing, when she’s not afraid. And she isn’t, he realizes.

            “If I could return it, I would.” He pauses. “There are things I wish I still had but don’t.” People too.

            “Like what? The tobacco you stole last month?”

            He sighs. “Like my grandfather’s pocket watch. An officer in Devonport took a shine to it.” Pity the fucking bastard wasn’t on the Gloucester when the Walrus took it otherwise he’d have gotten it back too.

            Another long moment of silent regard. “Hm,” is all she says at last, and he’s not sure what that means, but she’s still in her seat, and so is he, so Billy holds onto his cards and waits for her to take her turn.

            It’s a long wait. She stares at her hand, thumb worrying at the corner of her rightmost card, and if it were anyone else he’d have told them to make a play or toss in, but Billy bites his tongue and watches her dither. At length, she plucks out a card – _finally_ –  but his relief is short-lived when she wrinkles her brow and pushes it back into place. Then she does it again, and Billy is just opening his mouth to suggest that perhaps he could take the first turn instead when she drops her whole hand face up on the sand between them.

            “How do you do it?” she blurts out. “How do you reconcile all your rhetoric about freedom with being a pirate?”

            Billy crosses his arms. “It’s not rhetoric.” He will keep his temper this time, he will. “You believe we should bow to tyranny?”

            “You think others should bow to yours?”

            “Why do you brand _us_ tyrants? Because I escaped impressment? Because James escaped slavery?” She begins to argue, but he presses forward. “The English and Spanish and French have privateers, but you object to us because we sail under the black. The only difference is we divide it amongst ourselves instead of giving it to a king.”

            “You assume I do not object to privateering,” she says icily.

            He gives her a look. “And you’ve already accused Admiral Lindon of tyranny as well have you?”

            Her lips purse. “It’s not my place.”

            “And it’s your place here?”

            She inhales, another argument ready on her tongue, but in the end all that comes out is breath. “Can we not have a conversation?”

           Billy blinks, shakes his head. Cheats at cards, cheats in a fight. “Is this what counts for conversation in France?” He tries to picture her at one of his mother’s dinner parties and fails.

            “You English,” she smiles, small but real, with her whole face, and it stops thought. “such delicate constitutions.” As changeable as the weather in spring.

            Billy clears his throat. “If you’re trying to change my mind,” he begins, “I should warn you it’s already made up. Been that way for a long time and not likely to change. It won’t change,” he hastens to amend lest she continue to try. Hume had taken every opportunity during Billy’s long captivity to moralize, but he’d held fast, his father’s son. Easy to remember what you stand for when you’re in chains and the man preaching put you in them.

            “No,” she says quickly, “I didn’t expect to. I just…an explanation seemed warranted.”

            He considers that, considers the uncertainty in her eyes. “We will see that you both reach Nassau.”

            “It’s been months. You’ve heard from Admiral Lindon by now, you must have.”

            “Yes, I know. We are –”

            “Oy, Billy!” Vincent’s waving furiously at him, and the crew clustered together around one of the jollyboats. The second jolly boat. Billy tosses his cards in the sand. “Get over here!”

            “I’m sorry, please excuse me.”

            She looks about to ask more – she wants to – but all she says is, “Of course,” and gathers up the cards.

            He gets an elbow in the side when he reaches them. “Scaring her off again?” James asks with a smirk. There’s enough bait in that question to bring in a whale, but this time it’s easy to brush off.

            “What’s going on?” Paxton and Beauclerc are back, both standing in front of the captain.

            “We,” he claps Billy on the back, “are going to steal ourselves another Spanish ship.”


	5. Lies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, Jesus, it's been a long time, and I actually feel like I should apologize. I'm sorry I took so long. This was supposed to be another 1-2K word chapter that somehow exploded to 8K. And sorry for any leftover typos/formatting errors. I hope y'all enjoy it.

            The morning is cool, still early enough that fog hangs low over the water. Billy stands, boots sunk in the wet sand, between Madame Lauxenne and the boat.

            “Are you sure about this?” Billy asks. Because he isn’t sure at all. If anything he’s sure it’s a terrible fuckin’ idea.

            “Of course.” Her tone is airily confident, but way she looks over his shoulder and plucks at her hair says otherwise. Billy grits his teeth. He’ll not argue the point, not when her mind’s made up. Arguing with her is a process of days, and he’s only got minutes. Less than that. Beauclerc is already handing Miss Lizzie into the boat.

            “Besides,” she says, “Except for Mr. Silver, no one else amongst you speaks Spanish.” Her hair is done up in a loose braid, woven around the crown of her head and trailing down over the front of her shoulder. _It’s how they do it in Madrid_ , she’d said when he noticed, _Or at least how they did it five years ago_. Pretty, he thinks. More than, and he’s struck with a ridiculous and completely futile urge to reach out and touch. Billy digs his hands deeper into his pockets and winces when a shark tooth stabs the knuckle on his right thumb. He’d put it there last night and forgotten about it until just now.

            The tightness in his belly is there to stay. “Here.” Billy pulls the smaller of his knives from his belt and holds it out between them. Madame Lauxenne wrinkles her nose.

            “And what on earth do you expect me to do with that?”

            Of all the times for her to dig in her heels. “You never know when it’ll come in handy,” he says. It’s common sense is what it is. Billy waits for her to take it.

            “I don’t even know how to use one.” Her hands remain at her sides, fingers curled, letting him hang. “There’s hardly any point. And I’ve nowhere to keep it.”

            Billy looks her up and down, remembers himself, and blushes. He hadn’t meant it like that. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” He doubts a single woman in Nassau doesn’t have one stashed somewhere. “Put it up your sleeve, like a card.”

            She doesn’t laugh. He expected her to laugh. She wasn’t near so prickly last night, not prickly at all in fact. He’d brought his plate to her customary spot on the felled tree, and they’d talked. Just of little things – the crabs that came out at night, the stories for constellations. Occasionally silence that was not wholly uncomfortable rose between them. She hadn’t brought up their disagreements. It had been…nice.

            “Just take it,” he mutters, annoyed she’s choosing this moment to be stubborn about something so simple, “Better to have it and not need it than the other way round.” That’s common sense as well.

            With a reluctant grimace she finally takes the blade. Billy stuffs his hands back in his pocket. _Ow, fuck._ He’d forgotten about the shark tooth again.

            “Right. Well.” She really does try to put the knife up her sleeve, which is far too narrow. Eventually, realizing it won’t work, she settles for just holding it. “I suppose I should wish you luck.”

            “Don’t,” he says quickly, glancing behind and around him, hoping no one heard. “It’s bad luck.”

            She blinks up at him. “That’s ridiculous.”

            “Of course it is,” he agrees, “It’s bullshit. But if that’s what makes them feel better before a fight then I say let them have it.”

            Madame Lauxenne huffs. “You’re not pirates, you’re a pack of fishwives.” But the corner of her mouth curls up all the same, and Billy’s follows. He can’t help it. It’s not the first time he’s heard the comparison.

            “You’re not supposed to say ‘goodbye’ either.”

            Her lips twitch. “Then I shall say _au revoir_. _Until our next meeting._ ” She steps around him, headed for the boat.

            “Wait.” He moves to catch her by the arm but remembers himself and snatches his hand back at the last moment. Billy pulls the shark tooth out of his pocket. “Take this too.”

            She quirks a brow, and just like that his face heats, a furnace come to life.

            “I thought you didn’t believe in such superstitions.” After a moment’s hesitation she reaches to pick it from his fingers, accepting it more easily than the dagger. “I believe you called it bullshit.” Funny how b _ullshit_ can roll so easily off a lady’s tongue. “What is it?”

            “A shark’s tooth.” It’s an effort not to drop his gaze, but whatever Billy may be it’s never been a coward. “For luck.”

            “Pack of fishwives,” she repeats softly, bemused.

            _“Au revoir.”_ Feels like shoving a bag of marbles in his mouth, and now she does laugh.

            “That was atrocious.” Madame Lauxenne pauses, looks back over her shoulder before lifting her skirts to climb into the boat. “I expect you’ll have practiced by the time I see you next.”

o.O.o

            The plan is simple. Sidonie and Lizzie will book passage on a merchant ship with Mr. Silver posing as her husband. They will board the night before when most of the crew is spending the evening carousing on land before the long voyage. A small group of the pirates will cause a distraction at the other end of the docks, and the rest will take the opportunity to seize the undermanned and under-guarded merchant ship. Sidonie liked it better than being left behind to wait.

_“How do we know she won’t betray us to the Spanish?” The captain looks at her and speaks to Silver. Sidonie answers anyway._

_“Lizzie is the daughter of an English Admiral, and I am French with too many English connections and so doubly damned. Any betrayal would only serve to make us hostage to them instead of you.”_

_“And you wouldn’t rather them than us?”_

_Sidonie raises her chin. “The governor of Havana is Vicente de Raja. Governor Rogers killed his brother, and he was sailing under Admiral Lindon at the time. So no, I’d rather not seek Spanish hospitality.” She hasn’t a damn clue who Rogers was sailing under at the time, but it’s a good lie, and she is a good liar, and while it’s no secret that Sidonie bears the pirates as much loyalty as can fit in a grain of sand, no one doubts her allegiance to Lizzie._

_Mr. Silver tips his head skyward. “Escuché que se supone que llueve hoy.” It looks like rain._

_Today the sun would fry an egg if she had one. “Entonces eres un idiota. No hay una nube en el cielo,” she replies levelly._

_Mr. Silver looks around at Captain Flint. “She’ll pass.” Hmph. Madame Heloise Desmarais would be proud. “I say we bring her along.”_

            Sidonie, with her dark eyes and hair, will pass easily for a Spaniard. In fact, she did a fine job once already when the occasion called for it. Laurent, like Lizzie, was blond as a northern Prussian, and Deigo Angulo de Cordova had no interest in doing business with a Frenchman; however, he was far more receptive to ‘Antonia Zayas’, recently widowed and newly in control of her late husband’s trading ships. He also thought his son could charm her into remarriage and take her ships. Luis Angulo was indeed _quite_ charming, in the careless, self-assured way that eldest sons always are, and Sidonie enjoyed his efforts, but his father would never get his hands on those ships. Even if she truly had been a widow, it takes more than smooth words and fine features to lure Sidonie in. Laurent, however, received a valuable trading contract in Bilbao. She’d presented him the papers with a smile and declared it an excellent anniversary gift. Julien had scowled good naturedly from Laurent’s side, pleased. Sidonie looks down at her empty left hand. A widow in truth now, and without ships or her brother’s scowl, pleased or otherwise.

            Captain Bechet was a decent man, and one of Laurent’s most reliable captains, but he was also practical. When Marcel de Gourdon murdered Laurent, Bechet agreed to continue sailing the Bilbao trade route, but with the necessarily scant oversight, it was easy to pass a small portion of the profits, secretly, to Sidonie. ‘Antonia Zayas’ could sail from Baracoa to Bilbao, and it would be a trivial matter to petition Captain Bechet for passage back to Calais. From there the journey across the channel to London would be less than a day, and she and Lizzie would be safe.

            Or word of their kidnapping has spread, and the Spanish captain takes one look at Lizzie and turns them over to Governor Raja, who is no friend to the English, especially Governor Rogers. The pirates at least need them very much alive. _Merde_.

            The boat ride is long, and by the time the sun has reached its zenith Sidonie feels like wilted lettuce. At least they do not lack for conversation. Mr. Silver knows how to say a great deal of nothing with many words, so she is suitably entertained, but no more informed about him than when they started. Lizzie ask how he came to be aboard the Walrus ( _“But we aren’t,” he counters with a wink, and God have mercy, but the girl giggles._ ) He spins some yarn about a boys’ home and running away and pretending to be a cook, and it’s far too intimate and personal a tale to trust. He is, she’ll grant him, a fair liar and a talented storyteller. _Just like Laurent_ , a traitorous thought that slips into her mind before she can catch it. But then an Englishman doesn’t learn to speak un-accented, fluent Spanish in an orphanage.

o.O.o

            Billy’s first thought at seeing Baracoa is that it’s well-defended, and that he’d very much like if Nassau was situated in a place like this. Nassau has a long, straight beach, easy to sail right up to. Baracoa sits in the curve of a wide bay, like a crescent moon whose tips nearly touch. An invading fleet would be bottlenecked. Put a couple bunkers there and no one wouldn’t get in or out as you didn’t want them to.

            Used to be that Baracoa was like Nassau – a place for smuggling and sticking a legitimate seal on pirated goods. French, English, Spanish, everyone did business there, but now Spanish soldiers patrol the streets, and if the crew of the Walrus tried to walk into town, they’d all stick out like vicars in a whore house. Or maybe whores in church would be the better way to put it. Billy’s definitely seen more vicars in whorehouses than the other way round. The soldiers on patrol in the streets are alert instead of lazing against railings. What’s left of the Englishman in him bears no love of the Spanish, but they’re a disciplined bunch, ruthless. In Nassau, order was kept inasmuch as no one did anything outrageous enough to earn a place on Eleanor Guthrie’s black list nor messed with the plantations – nothing that would warrant anyone sending for the marines on Governor’s Island.

            “Ho.” Beauclerc passes the spyglass to Flint. “The galleon near the end next to the cutter.”

o.O.o

            _Just like Laurent, indeed._ Sidonie stands with her back to a bemused Mr. Silver. She’d introduced him as her husband, so smoothly she hadn’t even realized until thirty seconds later when the mate had said _they_ would share a room on the starboard quarterdeck. He’d only quirked his eyebrow at her once they were alone. Sidonie had said nothing, instead unpacking the hastily bought necessaries that lent credence to their story of seeking passage home to Spain. There is a deep satisfaction that whatever gold the pirates managed to escape with in their pockets has bought both her and Lizzie new clothes – only a few modest dresses, but clean, and her new comb is practically a small miracle after a week in the wilderness.

            _“I’m going to take our niece back to the markets. She wanted to get a souvenir for her mother.”_ Sidonie colors at his slight emphasis on _our_. Carrying on the joke whilst they’re alone seems presumptuous. They are not friends.

            _“Don’t let her dillydally. She can spend ages on ribbons.”_

 _“We’ll be back before supper.”_ For the life of her, Sidonie cannot find a single flaw in his Spanish, and with nothing to do but twiddle her thumbs and wait until nightfall, it niggles at her.

            The door clicks as he leaves, and Sidonie sighs in relief.

o.O.o

            Supper is a surprisingly pleasant affair. Or at least it starts as such. Captain Pasaron takes pride in the table he sets, and after Mr. Silver returned from the market with Lizzie (a cover for signaling to the rest of his crew which ship they would be on) the captain had invited them to dinner. Stewed flounder, well-spiced, with a thick, crusty bread. An assortment of cheeses follows, and after that, chocolate in delicately painted porcelain cups. After days of eating nothing but unseasoned boar off driftwood and salvaged tin plates, Sidonie could almost cry for the pleasure of it. The company is not bad either. Senor Claudio Batista, the first mate, sits to Sidonie’s right, an amiable man with a long nose who makes a point of giving her and Lizzie the choicer portions of each dish. Pasaron is more interested in his guests than Sidonie would prefer – he seems especially curious about their business in Cuba – but Mr. Silver seems to relish the opportunity to spin yarns about their imaginary past. He also, Sidonie notes, impressed despite herself, has a real talent for remembering each detail in his web of lies.

            At long last the captain smiles, hands spread. Every plate on the table is empty. _“Unfortunately, we can’t eat like this the whole voyage, but we must take pleasure when and where we can, no?”_

            His glance alights on hers a beat too long, and Sidonie bristles inwardly. _Espece de –_ She has been around too many first sons, and Rodrigo Pasaron is less subtle than most. Success, it seems, makes all men arrogant. Her ‘husband’ is sitting right across from her for god’s sake, and despite her earlier annoyance with Mr. Silver, Sidonie feels a spike of indignation on his behalf.

            Sidonie makes herself smile. She’s good at that. _“Well said, captain.”_ She rises and covers her mouth, as if stifling a yawn. _“And right now my pleasure is sleep. Best to be well-rested for the start of a voyage, wouldn’t you agree?”_

            _“Of course, senora.”_ Captain Pasaron nods to Mr. Silver and bows at the shoulder to Lizzie. She curtsies prettily. _“I pray you’ll forgive me if my men disturb you. I prefer to be the first ship out of the harbor, which requires us to catch the night tide rather than fight against the morning one.”_

            To his credit, Mr. Silver doesn’t react in the slightest at the news, nor when they move out onto the deck to find it teaming with Pasaron’s crew. The crew that should all have been ashore, leaving the ship unguarded. Lizzie looks at each of them, anxious.

            _“Don’t worry,”_ Sidonie says, smiling, heading off questions with a firm hand on Lizzie’s arm, _“we are far enough away that the sounds won’t disturb us.”_

            This should be a relief, but her own stomach flutters with uncertainty. However, the path before her is now clear – there is no need to rely on the pirates any longer. With the attack now infeasible, they will remain on the Santa Catarina, and Sidonie will take Lizzie back to London by way of Bilbao. Simple. Easy.

            And yet there is a knot in her stomach that refuses to go away.

o.O.o

            Flint splits the men into groups. Three will set the diversion while the rest storm the Santa Catarina.

            DuBois had been a sapper once, and inordinately proud of having all ten of his fingers in a way Billy never understood until he watched him make his own gun powder. It was forbidden him on the ship, and after one unfortunate incident no establishment in Nassau would give him a room until Flint personally guaranteed payment for any damages. Even DuBois, who came into his current life by flouting authority, was not fool enough to cross Flint.

            Earlier in the afternoon all the men handed over whatever was left in their powder flasks, and DuBois cobbled together a charge that, if placed properly on the outer hull of a ship, could ignite its magazine. Failing that, boar fat (of which there is _plenty_ ) wrapped in dry bark set alight on the deck would serve as a sufficient distraction.

            Billy tucks his pistol into the back of his belt. An odd feeling, carrying an unloaded gun, but blades have always been the more reliable option, and he’s won against worse odds with less.

 _Au revoir._ He mouths the words, and though unvoiced, they still feel like marbles.

o.O.o

            They walk back to their cabin, the two ladies ahead of Silver. He’ll need to be dealt with somehow of course. Or perhaps he’ll make the smart choice and continue to play the part of passenger and begin a new life in Spain. Unlike Billy – Mr. Manderly – he seems more motivated by pragmatism than passion.

            At that thought, Sidonie’s eyes are pulled to Lizzie, and the knot in her stomach twists with the added burden of guilt. She attempts to quash it by focusing on practicalities.

o.O.o

            Billy rows. His heart beats at a brisk clip in anticipation of a fight, and the slow, steady pace they must travel at, hugging the curving edge of the bay, does little to relieve the tension gripping his chest. The oars, wrapped in strips of cloth, splash mutely with each stroke. With the light of a three quarter-moon the way is easily visible, though they must take extra care not to be seen. Their only advantage is that the Spaniards will expect intruders to come at the mouth of the bay, not carry boats over land to the middle of it.

            From fifty yards out Billy can see that Silver chose well. A merchant ship, but well-armed. Full rows of eighteen pounders – seventy four in all – and her hull looks recently careened. For all English officers despise Spaniards, he’s never heard them accuse the Spanish of being lax. Even in Nassau there’s an unspoken rule that you never go after a Spanish navy ship – it’s the one fight no one will call you a coward for running from – but most smart Captains won’t touch their merchant ships either.

            At twenty yards out they swivel the oars, sliding silently to a halt. All eyes look towards the other end of the bay, waiting for DuBois and his distraction.

o.O.o

            The door slams open and then closed.

            “They won’t let me ashore.” His inability to talk his way ashore seems to frustrate him more than hearing the ship would be manned. He’s lapsed into English. And he’s staring intently at her, expecting help she will not – cannot – give. Her path is already chosen.

            Even if Sidonie could – which she doubts – she will not try to convince Pasaron to let her go ashore to try to warn the rest of the crew. She will not leave Lizzie. Besides, the pirates will take one look at the deck and the men swarming it and leave them be. No one would be foolish enough to risk attacking a fully manned –

_Boom._

            The small window in their cabin faces eastward with a good view down the docks. There is a plume of smoke, visible as a black cloud against the stars at the far end. The diversion. _They won’t do it. They won’t. They can’t. Only a fool –_

            The staccato pop of gunfire erupts on the deck above. The metallic clang of steel follows a bare second after.

o.O.o

            The vanguard, Billy included, are halfway over the rails before they see the danger, and by that time it is too late to turn back. The crew of the Santa Catarina is present, and, worse, on guard. But at this point a fight is about momentum. Go with it, use it, and you have a chance. Relinquish it and you lose everything.

            The two to his left fall at the first pistol shots. They’d let surprise get the better of them and hesitated. The man directly to his right, Paxton, tries to get up again, but when Billy barrels on past him, he’s still half-slumped on the railing. One farther down is Joji, still standing. His calm composure has always been at odds with his reckless, almost thirsty way of charging into a fight. Vane would have done well to try to recruit him too.

            Billy lets momentum carry him forward. The first man in his path he slashes from jaw to collarbone. He drops with a scream. Stepping around, he lets momentum spin him, putting the long dagger in his left hand into the side of another’s neck. Sweep with a sword, stab with a knife, never the other way ‘round. Stab blindly with a sword and it might get stuck, and then you’ve lost your most reliable weapon. Stab with a blade you can afford to lose. With a smaller blade it’s easier in and easier out.

            A blow jars his sword hand, hammering downward but not strong enough to make him lose his grip. The last time someone hit Billy across the back of his hand like that, they nearly cut it off, and he feels a surge of anger that not twenty seconds into this battle and it’s nearly happened again. _Know what’s behind you. Never give them your back._ He twists the tip of his sword, catching his opponent over the arm, yanking him forward and into the knife which Billy shoves easily under his chin. Easy in, easy out.

            A sword nearly catches him at the elbow, but a feint and a lunge and the man wielding it is down and the sword is now his.

            Then Billy finds himself up against not one, but two men. Keep moving. The best advantage of his height is his reach. Billy kicks out, driving his left foot hard into one opponent’s knee and striking out with the right blade at the other. A few harried blows and he’s able to drive the second back far enough to turn and cut the throat of the first. His remaining opponent mistakenly believes the change in momentum will have thrown Billy, but it is only a change, not a break, and Billy drives forward, swinging both swords in a flurry. Easy in, easy –

            Another Spaniard comes from the side. Another charges from the front. A slight break in momentum as he divides his attention between the two. But once again forced to face down two enemies Billy is unable to spare a glance behind him. He gives some ground, a fair trade for the relative safety of being nearer his men, but after two steps a heavy boot in the back of his right knee sends him stumbling. Another kick, close on the heels of the first and even more savage, into the back of his thigh and Billy barely brings up his cutlass in time to block a swing from the front. His grip is weak, and his enemy’s sword drives the dull edge of his own back against his forehead. The next thing he feels is the tip of a blade at his throat.

o.O.o

            It’s over quickly. One moment the clanging of swords and crack of pistols, then abruptly, it peters outs, like water dumped over a fire.          No one need wonder as to the victor.

            From the open window they can hear angry shouting in Spanish from the deck above. There is a scream, then a plea (in English) and some scuffling, then a shot, yelling, and finally, silence. Lizzie is white-faced, and when she reaches for Sidonie’s arm, Sidonie finds herself unable to look the girl in the eye. She should have done more to keep Lizzie away from them, from forming sentimental attachments that could end in nothing but death or pain.

            Silver is staring intently out the window, face stone-still in thought, shoulders tense. If she allowed herself the thought, she’d feel sorry for him. God knows she has stood in his very shoes, and it is enough to break a man. But Sidonie cannot allow herself or him the luxury of pity.

            Some of the pirate crew is obviously alive, though she doubts Pasaron’s mercy will let that stand for long. She is also sure they will do whatever it takes to stay alive, and it is only a matter of time until someone gives up her and Lizzie’s identities. Her only chance to salvage this is to go to go to the Captain first.

            At least Sidonie had the foresight not to show Pasaron the disdain she’d felt, and the moment she runs to him, kerchief in hand, tear in eye, and begging for protection he is more likely to grant it. First sons all face one common trouble in life: living up to their father’s expectations. To have the fortitude to carry on the family line with enough distinction that their sons will suffer the same anguish, desperate to impress them as well. It also bestows upon them an arrogance, the expectation of being asked to solve problems becomes easily confused with the ability to solve them. Julien was like that. It got him killed.

            Sidonie detaches Lizzie’s hand from her arm. “Stay here.”

o.O.o

            Billy twists, pulling. It’s useless, and it scrapes the insides of his wrists painfully raw, but just sitting and doing nothing grates more than the discomfort of too-tight ropes.

            “Castellano told us he killed you.” The captain of the Santa Catarina regards him quizzically, as if his presence is only puzzling, and wipes his knuckles on a white handkerchief. “He said he watched your ship burn.”

            Flint is like a boiling pot, full of anger. Hume had cold patience and disdain. Pasaron is like a blank mummer’s mask, more like Hume.

            With his hands tied behind his back Billy’s not able wipe his nose on anything, and blood dribbles in stringy gobs down his chin to soak the front of his shirt. Easier to keep his temper under control when it hurts to wrinkle his nose. Though it’s tempting, with the captain leaning in so close, to spit a mouthful onto the other man’s jacket. A little closer, and he might be able to smash his nose in with his forehead. Tempting, but he’s not that eager for another blow.

            “I think it will be embarrassing,” the captain continues in clearly enunciated but heavily accented English, “for him when he finds out a simple merchant had to finish the job, no?”

            He’d introduced himself that way, as just ‘Rodrigo Pasaron, a simple merchant captain.’ A man who flaunts his power, that man has a one in two chance of being full of shit. Billy would take such a man any day. A man who deliberately presents himself humbly, that’s a man you don’t trifle with. Pasaron’s older than Billy, younger than Flint, and though his face hasn’t a mark, when he wipes his hands Billy notices a crosshatched spread of scars across the back of his knuckles.

            “I’m impressed you got this far though.” He speaks as if they’re two strangers who happen to have struck up a conversation in a tavern, no sign of anger that six of his men are dead. “But tell me,” Pasaron sits back, stuffing the handkerchief back in his breast pocket, “how you got this far. The dock is guarded well here. I’m sure the mayor will be curious.” Billy’s sure he’d love to curry favor with the mayor.

            Billy stares evenly for a count of eleven until Pasaron backhands him across an already bruised cheekbone. Billy blinks away the stars. Only clue it was coming is the twitch in the cloth of his shirt; his face doesn’t change a bit. Then he sits back, pulling out the handkerchief he’d just pocketed. Billy knows death coming when he sees it. A Spanish merchant has no interest in his ability to spy in Nassau, and Flint’s already within his grasp along with the rest of his crew. His silence is all he has. He’ll die, but he’ll die standing. Or silent, as it were. You take what you can get in a moment like this. Maybe he should’ve broken Pasaron’s nose. Maybe he’ll lean in close again, just –

o.O.o

            At least Sidonie need not pretend at distress as she runs through the cramped corridors of the ship. _Dieu_ she is so tired of ships. Tired of everything. Tired of the last two months. Tired of swords and blood and killing and all those who seem to thrive on it.

            There are men outside the Captain’s door that make a half-hearted attempt at stopping her entrance, but a bit of well-timed hysteria can get one far. Without breaking momentum, Sidonie steps right through them (no gentleman would lay his hands on a lady), throws open the door, and –

            Sidonie trips, catching herself at the last second against the latch.

            _Billy._

            It’s not his face that she recognizes first, it’s his height. Not many men can make well-built, solid furniture appear small. His face, the front of his shirt, and all down his trousers are covered in blood. His own this time.

            She’d prayed for that once.

            _“Senora?”_ Captain Pasaron is annoyed at the interruption.

            Sidonie forces down the bile in her throat and regards the captain. She’d come armed with a plan, but piecing together her thoughts is a struggle, like gathering bits of paper blowing about on a windy road. _“Capitan,”_ Sidonie begins, _“Please forgive my interruption, but I must speak with you urgently.”_

            Billy coughs. Sidonie and Captain Pasaron both turn at the sound.

            He’s looking at her. _Oh non._ Billy is looking at her, and the recognition is plain on his face, and what’s more, Pasaron sees it. His eyes flick from Billy to Sidonie, as if to confirm his suspicions, and she can _see_ him drawing the connection – the _wrong_ one, by the sneer twisting his lips – and she knows, with sudden chilling certainty, that she has grossly miscalculated the likelihood of her confession and pleas being well-received. She and Lizzie will never make it to Spain on this ship, nor are they likely to make it to Nassau, so when Pasaron’s eyes leave her to look once more at Billy, Sidonie, with barely a thought, lunges for the pistol tucked in his belt.

            It’s loaded. Julien once swore he could tell by weight if a gun was loaded. Sidonie has no such talent, but for a split-second the captain’s hands half-raise, and he checks himself from taking a step backwards. Then Pasaron smiles. The pistol feels awkward and heavy in her hands and holding it steady takes effort.

            _“Senora,”_ Pasaron takes a step forward, holding out his hand. _“Por favor.”_

            It’s not a plea, but an invitation to surrender, one he is obviously confident she’ll accept. She has only one shot and what then? If Billy’s trussed up and beaten, then so is the rest of the crew. His crew will have no trouble dealing with a lone, unarmed woman, and they won’t be kind, not after this.

 _“Step back,”_ Sidonie says, with more steel than she feels. In the past a façade of confidence has served when the feeling was absent, but here it does not. Pasaron doesn’t step back, but nor does he move closer. She has precious little time until he decides on a course of action, after which she will most likely be dead or imprisoned or worse. Sidonie edges around the heavy oak sea desk as quickly as she dares towards Billy.

            The dagger he’d given her was too wide to fit up her sleeve, but a hastily sewn pocket in her petticoat had sufficed. She reaches under her skirt, one eye on Pasaron in case he makes a move, pulls out the dagger, and begins sawing away at the ropes binding Billy’s left wrist.

o.O.o

            She cuts him – twice – shallow enough that she doesn’t notice and he doesn’t care.

            Pasaron, while not prone to panic, resembles a cornered animal more and more with each slice.

            Don’t watch a man’s hands, watch his chest and his eyes if you want to know what he’ll do next. Pasaron’s eyes rove quickly over his desk, the heavy captain’s log, paper weights, a large inkwell, a letter opener. All items a man could use effectively in a fight, but all slower on the attack than a pistol. Outside help would be the better option, and he can see Pasaron has reached the same conclusion when his eyes begin to drift more and more towards the door. Come straight at the person holding a gun and you’re more like to get shot. Move away from them, especially from a person who’s never shot before (and he’d bet his life Madame Lauxenne has never shot anyone), and your chances of survival go up. But if Pasaron makes it to the door or alerts the guards he no doubt has posted outside, then their chances of survival drop precipitously.

            Pasaron’s shoulders twitch. Madame Lauxenne, with her attention half on cutting him free, doesn’t notice, but Billy can see exactly what’s coming. Any second Pasaron will bolt for the door.

            Billy turns his head towards her but keeps his eyes on the Spaniard and says, low, “Shoot him.”

            The blade in her hand stills, and Madame Lauxenne gawps at Billy as if he’d just suggested she use it on him.

            Pasaron takes a full step towards the door while she’s turned toward Billy. Billy strains as hard as he can against the remains of the rope holding his left arm. “Shoot him!” There’s no time to be subtle.

            Madame Lauxenne sees the movement and whips around.

            _“Alto!”_ His dagger clatters to the floor as she brings her hand up to grip the pistol. “Stop!” _Shit.,,_

            But she is no soldier. A pistol isn’t supposed to be a threat; it’s a promise, but she doesn’t know that. Madame Lauxenne stares ahead, frozen, white, and shaking worse than grass in a gale. _Shit._ A newborn kitten wouldn’t quail at the sight. They’ll die. Five minutes ago he knew he’d die, but now there’s a chance, a chance he can see slipping – Billy’s hand has gone near-numb from pulling at the rope. Maybe he should have just let her finish cutting him free. That way they would have at least had a fighting chance, because this – this is all going to shit, and he’s still tied to a fucking chair, and –

            Pasaron rocks back on his heel, turning.

            Madame Lauxenne is motionless. She’s stopped breathing. _Fuck’s sake._

            Billy half-stands, straining, the rope cutting a red welt into his arm. Pasaron lunges away –

_Bang._

            Bloody Christ, she took the shot. Pasaron doesn’t slow in the least.

            She _missed_.

            One more desperate, savage yank, and Billy’s left hand comes free, but Pasaron is at the door, and there’s no time, so Billy throws the chair, right hand still attached over the desk at the door.

o.O.o

 

            They go down in a thrashing heap. One, maybe both cry out. That Billy’s arm is still attached to his body is a miracle. There are shouts from the outside, pounding, but the door opens inward, and both men and the chair are shoved up against it, and no one outside will get in.

            She has seen men kill each other before. The only shock was in how quickly and easily it was done, both the spirit and the act of it. A duel is simple, clean by comparison, one shot and it’s all over. If there was no true hatred between the two parties, they might even do their opponent the mercy of missing on purpose.

This – This is something else entirely. This is a graceless, bloody brawl.

            They tear at each other, snarling and grunting, elbows and feet thumping against the door and walls. Sidonie stares, dumb and useless. Strange how such violence can be so muted. There is nothing she can do. Trying would be as ridiculous as a rabbit leaping to defend a lion in a fight amongst lions.

            She prayed for him to die once, and now… _Dieu._ She just…

            Billy might be hampered by having one arm weighed down by heavy furniture, but he makes up for it with size and brute strength. Clamping both legs around Pasaron’s, he twists to maneuver his free arm around the other man’s neck.

            Sidonie stands still, silent as the desk she leans on, and watches Captain Rodrigo Pasaron of the Santa Catarina slowly choke to death.

            All they wanted was a ship. All she wanted was to get Lizzie home. And now this.

            Pasaron’s eyes bulge, and his chest heaves without any sound. Billy too doesn’t seem to breathe, muscles cording out with the effort of death. So easy, in the end.

            They stay like that for a moment, even though the struggle is over, then, when he’s quite sure Pasaron is dead, Billy leaves the body of the Spanish captain where it lies, with its sightless eyes still bulging and its swollen tongue hanging out, and braces the chairback under the latch.

            “The knife, give me the knife!” He beckons frantically with his hand, but Sidonie can’t remember where she put it, until he points to the floor, and she bends to pick it up. Of course. “Quickly!” he hisses and grabs the knife from her hands when she moves to cut him free.

            Billy does the job a lot faster than she did the first.

            “What now?” she asks. Pasaron’s crew are still banging on the door, and from the jarring thunks, they’ve found something solid with which to batter it down.

            Billy picks up a length of cut rope. “Give me your hands.”

            She does so even before fully grasping what he has planned, and Billy winds the rope around her wrists, knotting it snuggly.

            “If you can cry, now would be a good time to do it.” A bit of well-timed hysteria can get one far.

            Billy toes the chair out from under the latch, pulls Sidonie back against his chest, sets the tip of his dagger just under her chin, and waits.

o.O.o

o

o.O.o

            A bit of well-timed hysteria can get one far. So can hastily forged papers and brazen lies.

            Sidonie had started out the day as Antonia Zayas, making her way home to Spain with her husband and younger niece. John Silver had started the day as Juan Zayas, husband to Antonia Zayas and a clerk returning home after a few years of service with the governor. Just before Rodrigo Pasaron died John Silver became Fernando Cartagena, Governor Raja’s spy sent to seize the ship of a captain who’d been evading taxes. Why else would a man slink away in the middle of the night instead of waiting to sail until morning? And he’d obviously become involved with smugglers, who, enraged at being cheated, had attacked the ship.

            After Silver ‘negotiating’ for Sidonie’s release, he’d used the wax and paper in Pasaron’s desk to forge a promissory note for the payment of a month’s wages for the crew, along with modest shares of the insurance payment from the seized ship for the officers. They were to take this to the governor on the morn for recompense.

            With orders to send for the city guard, most of the crew was sent ashore. Upon their departure Silver promptly released the rest of the pirates. Those remaining of the Santa Catarina’s original crew was given the option of death or jumping overboard. Pasaron’s body was dumped into the sea.

            Then the new crew of the Santa Catarina, efficient at more than just killing, set sail and prepared to run.

            Sidonie climbs up to the deck. They’ve just passed the mouth of the bay, all sails blown taught as they race ahead of the ships that will surely follow once the ruse is reported. They will be hard put to catch them. Laurent had envied Spanish galleons, had always coveted one for his fleet.

            She finds him on the stairs up to the quarterdeck, a bucket of water beside him and a wet rag in hand. He carries no lantern. No light that could give them away, as per the captain’s orders. She touches her fingers to the underside of her chin, where he’d held his knife.

            It is not the feeling that surprises her but the intensity of it. Sidonie has met soldiers after a battle. This is like that. It will pass. A lust for life, nothing more.

            Sidonie tucks her hands into her skirts. Wisdom dictates that she ought to turn around now before he notices her, and go below, back to Lizzie. But Lizzie is asleep, and Sidonie is restless, so she waits for him to notice her presence. He wouldn’t dismiss her, and she knows that, so Sidonie waits. She keeps still, but eventually his head turns, and Billy’s eyes land on her, and her stomach tightens. Nerves from everything that’s happened this evening no doubt.

             “Are you well?” he asks.

            She is tired, bone tired. There’s a safety in that, and Sidonie folds herself down onto the step next to him, tucking her skirts in close. A respectable foot of bare wood is visible between them.

            “No permanent damage.” Sidonie dips her hand in the bucket for a drink and spits it out. “This is salt water.”

            “Ah, yes.”

            “Surely, you have fresh water.” They won’t last to Tortuga without it.

            He shrugs. “It was close by.” Then, “Are you alright?” he asks again, squinting in the near-darkness.

            She’d never thought that would be a complicated question, and takes her time before replying, “I’ve never seen anyone killed like that before.”

            He stiffens at that, and says, voice hard. “You think I shouldn’t have killed him? What would you have had me do? Let him kill us first?”

            “Billy, that’s not –”

            “Sometimes that’s the price of living, and if you want to bury your head in the sand about it then –”

            “Billy!”

            His mouth shuts, but she can see a torrent of words barely held in.

            “Thank you.” Sidonie smoothes her hands down the front of her dress. “That is all I wanted to say. Just…Thank you.”

            The night has been too full of conflict for him to relax easily, but eventually the lines of his shoulders settle out. “I didn’t think you meant –”

            “I know.” Of course he didn’t know what she meant. She has railed at him often enough. “But for _this_ ,” the emphasis is gentle; she does not wish to cheapen her gratitude by implicitly chastising other past violence, “you have my thanks.”

            “You could have let them take you back. Made something up. Or just not said anything at all.” _I was going to._

            “They would have figured it out eventually. People are bound to ask more questions, and the daughter of an English admiral would be in the hands of the Spanish.” It’s a version of the truth.

            “And instead of letting her slip into the dastardly hands of respectable merchants you made sure she stayed safely with the pack of scoundrels and murderers.” He is studying her face, trying to suss something out, but Sidonie ignores his goading.

            “ _Spanish_ merchants.” Oh she did not come here to bicker. “You are trying to bait me, Mr. Manderly, and I will not have it.”

            “It was ‘Billy’ a moment ago.”

            Well. Her cheeks warm. Some things aren’t worth dignifying with a response. Sidonie takes the cloth from his hands – not as if he’s doing anything useful with it – dips the cleanest tip into the bucket, and begins to clean the crusted blood from his nose. A small touch, nothing more than it is. Cleaning.

            “You needn’t –”

            “Oh hush.” She wrings out the cloth and holds it out towards him. “You’ve more than one cut on your face, and if you want saltwater in each one, please, by all means, do it yourself.”

            He makes no move except to shuffle in his seat to face her.

            “Last time you came looking for me to clean you up.” She didn’t mean to sound reproachful. And why should she?

            “Don’t need sewing up this time,” he mutters, voice muffled by the rag scraping at his nose. She only means to clean the blood away from the edges, not get salt in his wounds, but it’s all a mess.

            “I was still terrified of you then,” she says conversationally.

            His eyes flick to hers and then away. “I know.” There’s a lot behind those two syllables, but none of that bears rehashing at the moment.

            “I’m not anymore.” There was a line there, and Sidonie knows she has just set foot on the wrong side of it. His breath comes a shade quickly considering they are sitting still.

            Sidonie realizes that some of the dark patches are bruises, not blood, and moves to scrub a gash on his collarbone. It would hurt less than his face.

            “Why?”

            That’s also a complicated question, and Sidonie chooses to ignore it. She slides her fingers under the many necklaces, and this time his reaction is unmistakable. Billy swallows, eyes everywhere but her face, and Sidonie knows, she just _knows_ , but she ignores that too, and lifts the beads over his head.

            “Where are these from?” she asks, dipping them in the water bucket and working off the blood with a fingernail.

            He looks long at the necklaces and finally at her. “Don’t remember. Um,” Billy takes them back, “Probably Nassau or Tortuga. I just liked them.”

            It’s so like something Lizzie would say that she must laugh.

            “Madame Lauxenne –”

            “Sidonie.” It flies out of her mouth without thought, and it is a _mistake_ , and now both of her feet are on the wrong side of the line.

            “Sid.” Contemplative. _Oh no. No, no, no._ But she doesn’t correct his shortening of her name. “Does it mean anything, your name?”

            Sidonie puts her mind to scrubbing the bloody rag in the bucket. “Something to do with Saint Denis. Legend has it that he walked three miles carrying his own head after it was cut off. I’m not sure whether that bodes well or ill, but there you have it.”

            “Well, I think. Stubborn. Like you.”

            Startled by his sudden levity, Sidonie puffs out a laugh that edges embarrassingly close to an unladylike snort. She favors him with a single cocked eyebrow and a thin-lipped look that is not meant to be a smile but begins to slip into one despite her best efforts. He does the same, though the effect is made less amusing by his bruised eye and swollen cheek.

            This close, even in the dim light, she can see how his face carries a panoply of nicks and scars. His breath, she realizes, has sped, along with his pulse, visible in its pumping in a vein on along the side of his neck, and he has grown very still under her hands. Sidonie knows she _really_ ought to move away. But despite the want clearly visible on his face, she also knows that he would never act on it. She is safe from him.

Somehow that makes it all the more maddening. And it makes it easy, so easy to reach out, to touch her fingers to his cheek and tip his head towards hers. Just lust. That’s all. Nothing a taste cannot slake.

            The first time his arms were around her she’d done her best to bite his fingers off. Now she presses closer, excited by the feel of his body against hers, of his lips.

            He kisses more sweetly than she expected, hesitantly almost. A man with those hands, roughened and steeped in blood, and he still cups her head with a hold that’s featherlight. Steady with no force. He is, of all things, shy. The realization – he is unaccustomed to touch – startles her.

            Sidonie pulls back, just a breath, and tips his chin up and to the side. He tastes of salt and sweat. She will return to her senses tomorrow, surely. For now she thrills in the catch of his breath as her lips trail down his neck, the tightening of his muscles under her fingers. At length, he gathers the courage to do the same to her. His fingers tremble when he turns her head aside. Just his lips at first, light as a whisper. It is agony, but as she encourages him with a sigh and her hands at the back of his head he grows bold enough to do it the way she had. Or rather he tries – a bit too much teeth and not enough tongue – too eager, and she flinches.

            “I’m sor –” Sidonie cuts him off with a kiss, to reassure – in this all men are fragile creatures – then with deliberate care cradles his head back, demonstrating. His arms tighten, pulling her closer. His continued wonder at the sensation, voiced in short breaths, is temptation made flesh. Traitor to herself that she is, Sidonie cannot help but wonder – if he is so taken with such innocent acts, how would he like the rest, the less innocent? How innocent _is_ he?

            With a last lingering kiss to his lips, Sidonie allows him a second attempt at seducing her. There is a delicate balance to be maintained when bolstering a man’s ego and ensuring he does a job properly, and if one – oh. Sidonie’s mind goes abruptly blank. A quick learner then. Yes. Excellent. _Dieu._

            “Hm?”

            “What?”

            “You said something.”

            “Oh.”

            “Yes.” He licks his lips, frowning in concentration. “Kaydyoomuhsowv.”

            Sidonie once heard her native language butchered that badly by a sailor from Liverpool and hoped never to hear it so again. “I believe you meant _que Dieu me sauve_.”

            “What does it mean?”

            It’s too dark to see a blush, a pity almost, as no man has managed to make her do so in some years. “Nothing.” He looks uncertain, and Sidonie slides her hand along his jaw. “It was a good thing.” She pulls him in. “I promise.” Billy ducks his head, grinning. Good grief, what are they, children? But she can’t help smiling as she kisses him again. But while she appreciates a soft touch, right now all it has done is inflame an ache, and his featherlight fingers satisfy her about as well as cup of tea quenches a bonfire, and she _wants_ –

            “Sid?”

            Sense returns with all the gentleness of a club to the head. Sidonie practically leaps back, shoving to her feet.

            “Lizzie.” Her ward is looking from her to Billy – _no, it’s Mr Manderly_ – and Sidonie gropes for words that can fix this. “You’re awake.”

            “I couldn’t sleep.” Her voice is raw, and Sidonie uses it as an excuse for escape.

            “Come I’ll make you tea.” She puts her arm around Lizzie’s shoulders and leads her back down the stairs.

            It should not feel so cowardly to run away without a backward glance.


	6. An idea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have chapter 7 85% done. I'd like to say that means it'll be out next week, but look at these once a month updates.

            Silver’s presence is heralded, as always, by the metallic  _clunk_  of his left leg. He stops beside Billy and leans on the rail.

            “I had an idea. Well,” Silver tips his head, squinting through the afternoon sun, “Dooly had an idea, but Dooly never thinks about what he says, so he didn’t know he had an idea, so…” He motions with his hand as if to say  _there you have it_. But Billy doesn’t have it yet, and he knows better to rush the point, which will come no sooner than Silver pleases that it comes. So he continues coiling rope and pretends he’s not impatient. He always gets there in the end.

            “We need to know where Hornby’s mills are,” Silver continues. He hasn’t looked directly at Billy yet – that’ll happen when he gets to asking what he came to ask – but Billy now knows exactly where this conversation is going, and it’s not good. Not good at all. “Now I’m fair sure Miss Lizzie doesn’t know. Pity. An obliging girl if ever there was one; she’d’ve told us by now if she knew.” Silver pauses. “But her cousin,” Billy can already feel the heat creeping up the back of his neck, “well I daresay she doesn’t like us very much.”

            “No,” Billy agrees lightly, eyes fixed on the rope. “I daresay she doesn’t.” Madame Lauxenne hasn’t so much as glanced his way since that night. It is a dangerous thing to starve for so long and then suddenly glut yourself. The pinch of starvation becomes a thousand-fold worse after.

            “She doesn’t like  _us_  that much,” Silver repeats, “but  _you_ …” From the corner of his eye, Billy sees Silver finally turn towards him, but he pretends to be too engrossed in his work to notice. “You saved her cousin’s life.” Billy lets out a half-held breath. “If I were a betting man,” If Silver’s entire life hasn’t been one gamble after another then Billy will sail back to Harbor Island and hang himself, “I’d wager  _you_  have the best chance of any of us to get an honest answer from her.”

            Billy wishes Silver would stop saying  _you_  like it signifies something. The only other person who could possibly know what happened that night was Miss Lizzie, and her loyalty to Madame Lauxenne is unquestionable. She wouldn’t have said a thing. She’s also taken it upon herself to act as her cousin’s shield.

            “I can try,” Billy says, “but I doubt she’ll say much.” He doubts he’ll even be able to get near enough to ask, not without trouble.

            “Oh I don’t know,” Silver squints up at him, then turns and heads back up the steps to the wheel, “sometimes you get a lot more than you think you will.”

            Billy cannot keep the flush from spready brightly across his cheeks and nose, and he thanks God for the mercy of solitude.

o.O.o

            God has a sense of humor. Sidonie had never been as friendly with the crew as Lizzie, which was exactly as she preferred it, but after being told of her role in Mr. Manderly’s defeat of Captain Pasaron they have warmed considerably. The captain gifted her and Lizzie each a necklace from the  _Santa Catarina_. Sidonie had smiled graciously and resisted the urge to spit in his face and demand her wedding ring back. But that is at the bottom of the sea, and Lizzie does so like her new pearls.

            Mr. Manderly had knocked on the cabin door some hours later bearing two bolts of finely dyed cotton.

_Nothing a taste cannot slake_. She cannot look at his arms without the memory of being in them. From the way he looked at the floor and stammered, his memory was just as fresh. Lizzie, bless her, took the cloth from his hands with the correct thanks and shut the door behind him. They will both forget what happened, and she will not speak to him again until then.

            Lizzie is the picture of discretion. Her father’s daughter, she has always been conscious of the value of silence. Publicly at least. Privately, she didn’t desist until Sidonie had explained herself.  _I thought you hated them, Sid._ How can you hate the man who saved your life? And yet a man who is kind to you and still a murderer is not a good man.  _It was a mistake brought on by the stress of the evening_ , was all she’d replied.

            Lizzie is also kind enough to never leave Sidonie’s side.  _I get to be your governess now,_  she smirked cheekily over her embroidery hoop. Sidonie had rolled her eyes and been grateful. Mr. Manderly had tried once more to approach her, with coffee this time, only to be neatly turned aside once again by Lizzie. He did not try again after that. Sidonie convinced herself that she felt only relief.

            And it is a surprise then, when Lizzie has run below decks to fetch more thread, when a tall shadow falls across her lap. Sidonie does not immediately look up. Irksome, when a man cannot read the writing on the wall.

            She raises her eyes slowly, leisurely tying off a knot, the very picture of indifference. Let him understand that he is already forgotten, nothing. It is no struggle, she tells herself, to keep her eyes on his face and away from the corded muscle of his arms. Arms he’s used to kill people, she reminds herself, when he rests a hand on the hilt of his sword to move it out of the way as he takes the chair across from her. Her face warms, guilt vying with fantasy.

            Mr. Manderly opens his mouth, but no words are immediately forthcoming.

            “May I help you. sir?” If he is put off by the judicious sprinkling of irritability in her tone he does not show it. Then again, she observes, he might look more comfortable if someone had dropped a live eel down his trousers.

            “You asked me when we would return you to Admiral Lindon.” He licks his lips. “Nassau is dangerous right now.” The more he speaks, the more smoothly his words come, the more relaxed his shoulders. “I’m sure Admiral Lindon must have mentioned it. The captain is of the opinion it might be better if we were to make a deal in more stable territory.” Billy –  _Mr. Manderly_  – pauses. “I know Mr. Hornby is a close family friend.”

            He feeds her just enough truth to mask the lie. Sidonie knows the game well. She played it long enough. But he talks too much, and he forgets that she has seen him when he’s being genuinely earnest. Irrationally, it is that very memory of his naked honesty that inflames her temper at his current attempt at subterfuge. He is not here for  _her_. And that he could possibly think she is so weak-minded as to be drawn in just because they –

            “You want to know the location of his mills,” Sidonie replies. She doesn’t have the patience for games, not from him. Anger leaks hotly through her blood. The look on his face – surprise at being caught out – gives her no small measure of satisfaction. “I wonder that you don’t just ask.”

            It might have been easier to pretend ignorance, just as she had with his captain all those weeks ago, but he has touched a nerve. She expected – well, she doesn’t know what she expected. Unreasonably, there is a part of her that would rather he had threatened her for the information instead.  _Easier to hate him then._

            “And you’d have told me?” he asks. A challenge, not a question.

            “You assume I know,” she says. If he wants to play games, well, then he must be prepared to lose.

            “You expect me to believe you don’t?” he asks, and she knows she too has struck a nerve, “I know back then you did not trust us, but –”

            “And you think I do now?” She could have done with less scorn. No matter. “Do you know,” she continues conversationally, “what the last man who asked for my trust did?”

            There is only stony silence and the shifting of his feet as he draws himself up straight.

            Sidonie brushes nonexistent dust from her sleeve. “He got my husband killed. I trusted that man a great deal more than I trust you, which is to say not at all. Do not presume you ever had my trust, Mr. Manderly.” She rises to leave, the soles of her shoes clacking smartly across the deck.

            Sidonie hears the sharp scrape of wood as he stands. “I’m still asking where the mills are,” he calls. “And I’ve yet to have a straight answer.” His tone has grown just as cold as hers and lost all trace of nerves.  _Espece de –_

            If only they were not on a ship. If only she were on a road or in a field or really anywhere else but a god-forsaken  _boat_  and could keep walking. If only they had never met. If only she had not been stupid enough to –

            Sidonie takes a breath, turns. He waits, arms crossed tightly over his chest. Sidonie fumes. “A man like Hornby would hardly share the details of his business with a lady,” she says at last.

            His mouth tightens. Would that he were more stupid. Sidonie lets her shoulders sag just a little, a show of reluctant defeat, and says grudgingly, “But I know that he has partners in the French colonies. In Port de Paix. Though you’d have to find a way to convince them to tell you.”

            It is not a lie. It is also not the whole truth. She does know where Mr. Hornby built his mills. The man doesn’t know when to shut up, and it’s impossible to get him to stop bragging about them all, especially when he’s had enough brandy. But Port de Paix is a large town with a well-manned garrison. She wishes the pirates the best of luck forcing anything out of anyone in a place like that. But this crew, especially its captain, have already proven they have a certain reckless nerve, so perhaps she will get lucky.

o.O.o

            “What does  _quedieumesauve_  mean?” DuBois had elbowed his way into a game of spillikins, so Billy figures the least he can do is be useful.

            “ _Que Dieu me sauve._ ” DuBois enunciates each word clearly back to him, and Billy wonders why the French feel the need to be personally offended at every mispronunciation. It’s not like he was raised to it. “It means ‘May God save me.’”

            “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

            “Depends.” He screws up his face in concentration as he pulls a thin stick out from the bottom of the pile. “If someone’s got a gun in your face or a sword at your throat, it’s probably a bad thing.”

            “Can it be a good thing?”

            “Like I said, depends. Why do you ask?”

            Billy looks across the galley to where Madame Lauxenne and Miss Lizzie sit in quiet conversation.

            “No reason.”

o.O.o

            Sidonie is lucky. Or perhaps Lizzie is. Or maybe they both are. Either way, fate owes her much. The pirates didn’t shy from the Spanish, nor do they shy from the French. The journey to Port de Paix is three days.

            Despite his garrulous nature, Sidonie cannot hate Mr. Hornby. It was his introduction that garnered her the position as Lizzie’s governess. And it was through the De Launcet’s, his partners in Port de Paix, that she was first introduced to him. They took her in when she fled Calais.

            Michel De Launcet was the younger of the Comte’s sons and a frequent investor in Laurent’s ventures. Michel was appreciative of Laurent’s returns, and Laurent appreciated Michel’s deep and willing pockets. Sidonie appreciated his bed and that his house was outside of Calais, in Escalles. Laurent encouraged their trysts; Michel’s pockets were always particularly willing afterwards.

            If the sin of first sons is arrogance, then the sin of the younger is fear of obscurity. Michel was a third son and would never be able to steal his father’s love from his older brothers. Stealing the affections of another man’s wife (or so he thought) served as an adequate substitute. Some sons were content dressing like fops for attention, content to revel in their lack of responsibility. Michel made himself indispensable to the family business, made himself a nuisance to his employees by overseeing everything personally. That it has earned him stewardship of their ventures in the French colonies should not have surprised her.

            There is only a moment of shock, as she and Lizzie weave through the crowd on the wharves of Port de Paix, when Sidonie recognizes him standing outside an enormous warehouse. The same shock of jet black hair, the penchant for riding boots no matter the occasion. The iron gates of the warehouse are embellished with crowned eagles, the De Launcet crest. But the pirates on either side of them, Captain Flint among them, are on course to herd them past that branch of the docks. This is the closest she will get.

            Sidonie’s heart pounds. There is no room to run. The walkways are clogged with people and horses ferrying goods to and fro. The only clear way is across thirty feet of seawater.

            Silently, surreptitiously she halts, grabbing Lizzie firmly by the arm. They have seconds. If that.

            “What are you doing?”

            Not even that. Mr. Manderly is looking behind him, wondering why they’ve stopped.

            She looks Lizzie in the eye and then throws them both as far as she can off the edge of the docks.

            She hears one of them curse, but she ignores it.

             _“Au secours!”_

            Lizzie, helpfully, screams as well before remembering that she can swim. Sidonie made her practice in full dress. She’ll be fine.

            A bit of well-timed hysteria can get one far. She’d been correct, guards are heavy on the ground in Port de Paix, and men in blue coats come scurrying to the edge of the wharf. Some – those who can swim – shed their jackets. Others push long poles into the water.

            Sidonie does not look back. Her sole focus is pushing forward, a fearfully difficult task with so many petticoats, and ensuring that Lizzie is keeping up. Her arms burn with the effort.

_“Donnez-moi votre main!”_

            Sidonie complies, taking the soldier’s hand with a sob and reaches out for Lizzie with the other. Strong arms push and pull them up the stones, and suddenly they are surrounded by blue jackets and shining epaulettes. A mustachioed man, one of those who jumped in the water, offers her his dry coat. Another soldier sets one gently over Lizzie’s shivering shoulders. Only now does Sidonie look around, eyes scanning hurriedly over the people milling about. Some have stopped to gawk, others have already moved on from the spectacle. The pirates are nowhere to be seen. She checks again, hardly able to believe they could be free after so long.

_“Madame,”_  the soldier who’s coat she’s wearing is trying to get her attention.  _“Madame, etes-vous blesse?”_  She scraped her hand on the rocks, but that hardly matters.

_“Non.”_ She looks back to the warehouse. Michel and his cluster of men are all still craning their heads towards the scene. _“Emmenez-moi a Monsieur De Launcet.”_  But she takes Lizzie by the hand and begins walking before he can respond.

_“Comte!”_  He’d asked her to call him that in private, and his eyes widen first in surprise, then recognition upon hearing it. Michel puts a hand on the shoulder of the man talking to him, a signal for silence, and strides forward to meet her.

_“Madame.”_  He stops a pace away, taking in her appearance, from sodden hair to soaked bodice. They have not met in years.  _“You are the last person I expected to see here. I thought you were in England.”_  He snaps his fingers and calls back over his shoulder for someone to fetch a carriage. Sidonie nearly collapses in relief.

             _“It is a long story.”_

_“I look forward to hearing it.”_

o.O.o

o

o.O.o

            Nassau is stifling, both from the heat and from the societal expectation they have been returned to. It has been three months since they landed in Nassau, courtesy of De Launcet ships. Lizzie is now seventeen, and it is supposedly winter.

            She is no longer allowed to gamble. Occasionally, there is a game of whist, and there is no foul cursing when she wins. More often there is needlework and boredom. Lizzie will gaze longingly and run her fingers over the ropes and knots when they walk by the beach. There are no more swimming lessons. Sidonie does her best to find books, to take her out with paper and charcoal pencils, but Admiral Lindon has grown understandably paranoid where it concerns his daughter. If five armed guards cannot be spared, then they cannot leave the estate.

            Today is a mixed blessing. They are allowed out, but it is hot enough that her shift will be have to be peeled off her by the time they return. Neither Lizzie or Sidonie much care, and soon enough they are wandering, surrounded by guards, through the market street. It seems the heat hasn’t discouraged anyone else from doing business, and the streets are crowded.

            Lizzie stops to examine some gilded buckles, and Sidonie steps between two stalls, glad to be out of the press of bodies. Despite its smaller size, Nassau manages to be nearly as chaotic as London. There are only two other people interested in buckles at the moment.

            “We all knew he was a crazy bastard.”

            Sidonie frowns. Gentlemen ought to watch their language around ladies. Neither notices her reproachful expression. Then again, Lizzie has regularly heard far worse. Then again, these two don’t strike her as worthy of the title ‘gentleman’. She recognizes them as belonging to Hornigold’s crew. Barely better than pirates.

            A name catches, like a hook, and drags Sidonie out of her reverie.  _Flint._  Her hand stills from where it was sifting through a tray of buttons. She is all ears, keen as a hound.

            Pardons refused. A flight into a storm.

            “You almost have to admire it,” one of them says, “loyal to the cause, to the end.” _End._  She’d never expected anything else really.

            “Admire the stupidity maybe.”

             _The end._  Her stomach feels suddenly unsteady.

            “Sid?”

            She looks around to Lizzie’s hand on her arm. She’s carrying several small wrapped parcels. Lord Lindon has been generous with her allowance, and Lizzie takes every advantage, especially after long stretches spent at home.

            “Are you alright?” Her brows are knit with concern.

            “Yes.” Sidonie takes the parcels, forces a smile. “It’s nothing. Just the heat.”


	7. Sisyphus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm just going to stop making promises about when I post. Here's to you guys.

            It is dusk, and they are returning from an afternoon spent on the beach. Admiral Lindon gifted Lizzie a set of watercolor paints last week, and she was excited to try them out. _Birds_ , she insisted, would be perfect subjects. Lizzie is still obsessed with _movement_. Birds, it turns out, move a bit too much, and she was forced to make do with painting the sunset. ( _“It does still move, just…slowly.”_ )

            They are a bare half-mile from home when the carriage jerks sideways and comes to a sudden, jarring halt, throwing up a great spray of dirt and stones. Sergeant Harrington is half out of his seat and already drawing his sword when a lone rider thunders past.

            “Sorry about that m’lady!” Bates calls, “Nothing to worry about!” and with a sharp _tsk tsk_ to the horses they start moving again.

            Sergeant Harrington lets his sabre slide back into its sheath before retaking his seat. It takes a little longer for Sidonie’s heart to settle down. _No one meant any harm._

            “I do hope he had a good excuse for that.” Lizze pulls her arm out of Sidonie’s grip and straightens her portfolio.

            The excuse, they find out upon arriving home, was that a man had been murdered in Nassau. Tavern brawl or something. They don’t learn anything more than that because Lord Lindon bids them prepare for dinner, and he refuses to give any details when Lizzie brings it up over the first course.

“Ghastly affair, but nothing you need concern yourself with.”

o.O.o

            “It damn well concerns me when I’m not even allowed to leave the house!”

            “Lizzie!” Thank _God_ the admiral wasn’t here to witness that. As it is, Lizzie looks less than chastened.

            “It’s almost as bad as being on a ship for months on end,” she throws her embroidery hoop across the room, knocking over a candlestick, “except at least there they’d talk to me!”

            Privately, Sidonie agrees. It’s been four days since they have been allowed out farther than the yard. And while Lizzie may be a child, Sidonie is not. There is no reason she need be kept in the dark as well, yet Lord Lindon refuses to speak of the matter except to say he wants only for their safety. Laurent and Julien had said much the same thing and where did that get them except murdered and Sidonie forced to flee to England?

            Sidonie realizes she’s been clenching her jaw and relaxes.

            “Get my cards.” She hasn’t had a proper game in ages, and it’s high time Lizzie learned how to cheat.

o.O.o

            A week later a pirate is hanged. Charles Vane. By now she’s heard the stories of his exploits, none of them savory, and not even Lizzie with all her sentimentality regrets his death. It was God’s mercy that it wasn’t his crew that captured them. Sidonie shudders. No, nothing to regret at all. The king’s justice through and through.

o.O.o

            Another pirate is hanged, but this time it has nothing to do with justice. Captain Throckmorton, one of the pardoned pirates-turned-legitimate merchant sailors. Strung up by the neck for the whole street to see. One of the maids whispers to another about a black spot, but Sidonie doesn’t know what that means.

            Lizzie is becoming quite proficient at counting her cards.

o.O.o

            Captain Berringer’s enormous, ornate desk is bare but for an inkwell, quill, and a single stack of letters situated exactly in the center. He keeps most of his papers in a locked drawer.

            Lizzie runs a finger along the dusty frame of a mirror before adjusting a hairpin. The frame itself is larger than the actual mirror, intricately carved from lustrous maple wood. Or perhaps ash. The room is sparsely but richly furnished. It once belonged to Eleanor Guthrie, she was told. Governor Rogers appears to hold her in high esteem. Admiral Lindon does not, and Sidonie was instructed that it would be inappropriate for Lizzie to keep company with her. Hardly a challenge when they are not much able to keep company with anyone these days. Lizzie had guilted and pestered Lord Lindon into taking them into town, but there has been no shopping. They were ordered to stay in Berringer’s office until the admiral’s meeting with Governor Rogers was finished.

            Sidonie paces, impatient. They should have been on the road back to the estate an hour ago, and her stomach is eager for supper. There is only one chair in the room – Berringer’s – and while Sidonie would appreciate the rest to her feet after walking the beach all day, he might be displeased if he came back to find her sitting at his desk.

            The clock strikes eight, and Sidonie no longer cares what pleases or does not please Berringer. Her only concession to his privacy is angling the chair towards the window.

            “Sid?” Sidonie turns around to find Lizzie holding up a charred piece of paper. “Come look at this.”

            If they still haven’t finished their meeting, there is no harm in a little snooping. Besides, she is bored, and it is Berringer’s fault if he cannot burn his letters properly.

            Sidonie rises to stand behind Lizzie’s shoulder. The top half is blackened and illegible, but the bottom is easy enough to read. Sidonie forgets all about her grumbling stomach.

_Captain Throckmorton’s spot will not be the last…Ignore it and join him. Heed it and reclaim your place amongst us. Until then I remain,_

_Long John Silver_

            John Silver. But not signed in his hand.

            “Sid,” Lizzie is regarding her with wide eyes, “are they –”

            The door swings open, and the admiral and Captain Berringer stride in. Both men stop short when they see the two ladies, pale from shock.

            Sidonie says dumbly, “I know this hand.”

            Indeed she’s seen it before. A scrap of paper tucked into her copy of The Odyssey, a note of thanks. A folded page tied neatly atop a bolt of cotton, stilted and awkward in expressing his hopes for her good health after an ordeal.

            They are alive. Or at least _he_ is.

            Admiral Lindon misreads her shock. “I had hoped to protect you both from this, but you’ve no need to fear,” he says firmly. He takes Lizzie by the hands, enfolding them in his with a squeeze and says earnestly, “They are an undisciplined rabble, savages, against Royal marines. Cowards who lurk in the shadows always lose when confronted with the light, and they’ll be put down like the dogs they are.” He gives another squeeze before bidding them follow him out. “They shall never touch you again.”

            Sidonie looks back to the letter with its ash-flaked edges and feels the cold finger of foreboding trail down her back. Not a coward, nor a savage. No, never those things.

            She lets the page fall back into the grate. It does not matter. He made his choice, and none can turn him from it.

o.O.o

            On Sunday, two pirates are hanged. Just after church the whole of Nassau gathers in the square to watch, and Captain Berringer has had a permanent gallows built for the occasion. _This is the first of many, ma’am, mark my words._ Of that, Sidonie has no doubt. He has become harder of late, slower to smile and always with a grim set to his jaw. Sidonie remembers when he used to offer them sweets when she and Lizzie accompanied Lord Lindon into town.

            Lord Lindon, in a misguided attempt to reassure his daughter, has brought her to town this day. The moment the trapdoor drops and the two men are left swinging and choking and kicking about with their tongues lolling and their eyes bulging Lizzie nearly faints, and Sidonie hurries her into a carriage home.

            Lizzie does not beg to be let out much after that.

o.O.o

            On a rare outing into town for thread and paints, Sidonie passes Captain Berringer in the street. When he raises his hand in greeting she sees the bright stain of blood on his cuff. Lieutenant Kendrick, cheeks flush and uniform trousers smeared with dirt, drives a cart with several barrels stacked in the back.

            “That’s one smuggling line the bastards no longer have.” Kendrick glances down. “Begging your pardon, ma’am.”

            Sidonie waves it aside. After all, she spent months on a pirate ship listening to worse.

o.O.o

            “But Papa –”

            “I said next week, Elizabeth.” Lord Lindon tosses his napkin onto the table and follows Milton out.

            They were halfway through dinner when a commotion at the door interrupted Lizzie’s negotiation of a day trip to the beach.

            The admiral remains in conference the rest of the evening, leaving Lizzie without an opportunity to renew her case. At a quarter to midnight Sidonie offers to go down to the kitchen for tea just to escape her ill humor.

            “– a chance at this Long John Silver that they’re offering, I’m willing to take it.” Sidonie pauses midstep before slowly tiptoeing over the carpet to stand ouside the door of the drawing room.

            “Do you trust them? The Barlow house, if that’s where they are is bound to be heavily guarded.”

            “They’re traitors, sir, but they’re eager for a pardon and they know the consequences if they betray _us_. And the plan I have in mind doesn’t involve the Barlow house at all. We’ll force them to meet us on our terms. We’ll control the field, sir.” The tea tray is heavy and it feels the work of millennia to shift it into a more comfortable position without making noise.

            “I’ll not send our men into a trap to be butchered.”

            “Nor I, sir. But they want our powder, and I don’t need the word of a traitor to tell me that. If you’ll allow me,” She can hear the shuffling of papers, the unrolling of a map, “If we divide the shipment in two, take half to the fort directly from the ship and take half up the coast then we can lure them into attacking us here.” A tap. “A few men on the cliffs will fire on either side, keeping them penned in, others will fire into the wagon, and with that much powder there’s no chance of any of them walking out alive.”

            “Including the driver of the cart I imagine.”

            She can hear the smile in Berringer’s voice, and it is not kind. “Traitors eager for a pardon, sir. No need to mention the whole plan, just have to give them a uniform and tell them where to go.” Another shuffle of papers. “If they’ve been with Silver long enough to know his plans, then I don’t doubt they’ve been around long enough to have killed my men. God may pardon them, but I cannot.”

            Carefully so as not to rattle the china, Sidonie steps softly in a wide circle around the door, edging towards the stairs. She takes the tea to Lizzie, but begs exhaustion and heads straight to her room. It’s too tempting to talk, to tell her everything, and in the end it would only upset the girl. Lizzie had cared for them after all, and Sidonie…she…she didn’t hate them in the end.

            She is exhausted, but sleep doesn’t come. What does come is the image of a burning ship with Lizzie plunging overboard into a dark sea. The face of the man who saved her from drowning. That same face broken and bruised and bloody after a fight to the death. Restless, she turns onto her back. She owes him nothing.

            Even if she did feel truly obligated there is nothing she can do. _Is that really true?_ Sidonie’s right hand moves to her left ring finger, a habit that still hasn’t broken. Another face appears in her imagination. _Go, cherie._ Sidonie has told herself each night since Laurent’s death that there was nothing she could have done, that however well-intentioned it was Julien’s idiocy that caused it all. But if she had known more and known it sooner… _You know enough now. And there is time._

o.O.o

            She’d never thought Nassau to be cold, but in the dead of night, galloping through the trees with the wind flying directly inter her face Sidonie finds herself shivering. It’s even colder when she dismounts and the energy from staying on an unsaddled horse no longer warms her. She’d been forced to leave her housecoat in a heap by the barn, and Thomas will have a devil of a time rounding up all the horses she set loose, but it was a necessary cover to her disappearance. If she makes it back home, she can say she was kidnapped.

            “Ho!”

            Sidonie nearly jumps out of her skin, which scares the horse more than the yelling. Two men bedecked in blades and brandishing pistols step out of the brush and into her path.

            With more confidence than she feels and less than she’d like to show, Sidonie yanks on the bridle and says, “I’ve a message for Long John Silver.” Good guards, they don’t take her at her word. Neither moves. “He’ll know me.”

            “Aye, miss, but if you knew him, you’d’ve given his name.”

            “Billy then. Billy Bones.”

o.O.o

            Her first thought, dumbly, is that he’s grown a beard. Her second thought concerns the awareness of the many armed, rough men surrounding her.

            He blinks up at her from a long wooden table littered with maps and papers. “What are you doing here?”

            Her eyes dart from face to unfriendly face, and more than one man sets a hand to a pistol or a sword. A few look out the window with the clear expectation that she’s brought the redcoats with her.

            “You’re planning to ambush the powder shipment tomorrow down at the coast.” She speaks tentatively, still uncertain, but their looks confirm it. It is obvious her knowledge of their machinations has not endeared her to them, but she pushes forward. Better to be direct. “They are expecting you. Someone told them.”

            There is much rustling at that, and exchanging of looks, but Billy straightens. “Give us the room.”

            His stare is unnerving, and it doesn’t waver once in the time it takes his men to file out, and Sidonie wonders what it is that he is trying to discern.

            “What are you doing here?”

            “I should think it’s obvious. I’m keeping you and your men from walking into an ambush and being killed.”

            “How many will there be? Where will they be waiting?” He is changed since last she saw him, harder, focused.

            “I don’t know.”

            “Don’t know or won’t tell me?” She has seen Billy choke the life out of a man up close, but this is the first time since getting to know him that he has made her uneasy.

            “I don’t know.” She narrows her eyes. “My god, don’t tell me you intend to follow through with this anyways.” He does not contradict her, and Sidonie steps forward, amazement eclipsing discomfort. “You can’t!” This is not why she risked everything by riding out here in the middle of the night.

            “Did Berringer send you?” Sidonie is struck dumb by the accusation, rage constricting her chest. Regardless of how they last parted, that he cannot recognize the risk she took –

            “Oh you bastard. No,” she says at his raised brow, and _how dare he_. “Berringer would rather kill you tomorrow than warn you off, and if you don’t know that then you don’t know the man you’re fighting.”

            “I still don’t understand why _you_ are here.” Billy comes around the desk, turning the end of a quill between his fingers.

            “Forgive me, but I cannot say it any more plainly than I already have.”

            Billy holds her gaze, still searching. “What is it you want me to do? Give up and sail away?”

            “There are many islands in the Caribbean. Surely one is as good as another. Another would be better if it doesn’t have British soldiers on it.”

            “No.” He shakes his head. “I have bled. My men have bled and fought and died for this. You think I should tell them to just drop it all and leave? That it was for nothing? Because if we don’t get those weapons and powder that’s exactly how it will be.”

            “Those British soldiers, they too have fought and bled and died to keep their own safe, to keep the rule of law. What makes you think you’re better? You want freedom. But for whom? You make your fortunes stealing and murdering.” She draws herself up. “You didn’t go home to England because you could not face your parents. In your heart you must know this is wrong. Which cause do you think your parents would have taken up? Yours or theirs?” His face darkens faster than blowing out a candle, and Sidonie knows she is fast approaching a line she cannot uncross. Good.

            “You think _they_ are better for Nassau? You say we are worse, but by your own estimation they are just as evil. Piracy and privateering are all one and the same once you take away the license from the crown. Or do you not count the Spanish as people?” He tilts his head. “Or the French? Or do you excuse them because they are at war? _We_ are at war.”

            “A war you started.”

            “ _England_ started this war. _They_ started it when they stole the freedom of honest citizens, when they built their empire upon _our_ backs and told us to be grateful for it. Here, every man on a crew is there of his own free will and is called a brother. The British cannot say the same. And whose ships bring slaves to New Providence’s plantations? Who buys those slaves? It has never been us.” His face contorts. “And yet you brand us the monsters.”

            There is a bitterness there that will never be undone, and Sidonie despairs of ever having thought she could change his course, even just to avert one tragedy. Convincing a man to see past not only his pride but years of pain to commit to the lesser of two evils is a worthier task for Sisyphus than pushing a stone. Perhaps even Hades was not so cruel.

            “I did not say you are a monster. There is no perfect system,” she pleads. “But what else should they do? A man murders another over what isn’t his and he must pay the price. What would _you_ do to a man who stole from you? Who threatened you?”

            His grim, self-satisfied smile feels like failure. She walked straight into a trap of her own making. “They have stolen from us. They do threaten us. And so I will continue to do exactly as I am doing now, which is drive them from this place.” If she could wring his neck, she would.

            “How can you not see this is wrong? That there is a better way?”

            “If this is how you feel about it, then why did you bother coming here?” His patience is finally spent. “Why not just stand back and let Berringer have us?”

            “Because I want you to survive!” she exclaims.

            It is the plea she should have made at the outset, and all at once his anger drops out from under them both like a stone. “Sid –”

            “Can you not see how this will end?” Sisyphus, at least, had the advantage of recognizing futility when confronted with it, but if there is even a sliver of hope…she can’t not try. “Is all _this_ really going to give you what you want? Let you _keep_ it? It’s not possible.”

            His voice is softer and quieter than it was before but has lost none of its conviction. “You don’t know how it will end.”

            She reaches between them for his hand. “But I am afraid that I do.” If the honest desperation in her voice can sway him, then it is worth her pride.

            His hand slides from hers, up her wrist to her forearm and then onto her shoulder where it stays, and Sidonie knows that despite her best efforts Billy has no intention heeding her warning. Coming here was all for naught. Perhaps a part of her had known that from the outset.

            She should go. In the face of such abject failure there is nothing to do but retreat – indeed he is watching her face, waiting for her to back away, and she ought to, she really ought. But there is a scar on his cheekbone she doesn’t remember – still red, so it must be new – and Sidonie lets herself be distracted, reaching out to run her finger across it.   _I have bled._ There is another cut – freshly scabbed at the top of his throat – and though the danger is past she is afraid of how he got it. It will not be the last sword that gets through his guard. _And yet you would choose a course that guarantees more blood._

            The only sound in the silence is her breath, a soft inhale, when he ducks and pulls her mouth to his. There is still a hint of that shy man she kissed that night so long ago on a stolen ship. Billy hesitates, just for a moment, before sliding his arms fully around her, but when Sidonie offers no resistance – quite the opposite – he is as a wayward spark fallen on dry tinder. This is a man grown used to command. This is a man who knows what he wants and has waited long enough for it. He kisses her deeply, thoroughly, with a thirst that rivals her own, and god damn him, but it is a _relief_. This is the man she’d wanted to awaken that night.

            With a heaved breath his arms squeeze around her and lift, and in the next moment Sidonie’s feet dangle in air when he sets her on the table. She does not protest when he steps into the space between her legs. They are past that. Instead, she takes her hand from around his shoulders only just long enough to push aside an inkwell. He is so tall, and kissing him forces her to lean well back or risk an aching neck.

            Perhaps less shy, but no less sweet, a heady contrast to his roughened appearance. He kisses the dip just below her ear, the hand at her back pressing closer when she shivers. She should care – care that if this goes on he will leave a mark, that – he does it again, lingering, and she cannot help the way her fingers curl into his shirt. She doesn’t care, not in the least. It is so much easier, so much more pleasurable, to pull him down with her, to feel the weight of his hips fitted against hers.

            Heavy boots clomp past the door outside, and she goes still.

            Sidonie could sling rope and haul sails for a thousand years and never hope to match Billy’s strength, but when she sets her hands against his chest and pushes, he goes easily, levering her up with him.

            His brows rise in question. His hands still rest on her hips. “Don’t,” she says, pushing a little harder. Her breath comes unconvincingly short and heavy. Billy’s heart beats at a gallop under her hands.

            “Why not?”

            Sidonie doesn’t have it in her to look him in the eye. “I wish you wouldn’t.” His fingers squeeze – for the barest instant – around her arm, and his confusion pulls at her like a fishhook caught behind her ribs. Sidonie forgets, sometimes, that a man can bleed without being cut.

            “You’re not indifferent, don’t tell me you are.” His voice is rough, almost a plea.

            “And you think that’s all it takes?” Irritation, her mother had once said, can break any witch’s spell. “Not being indifferent?”

            “No.” One hand still holds her waist, thumb pressing at her hip. “I think you walked away from the safe, comfortable life of a respectable lady to warn me away from danger. That’s a damn sight more than just ‘not indifferent.’” _Foolish. I am a fool._

            “That does not mean I support,” Sidonie pushes back further and waves behind her at the table with all its maps and papers, “ _this_. Not like this. And at one point in the very near future one of us will hate the other for it. More likely both of us. I will hate you for stubbornly holding to the wrong course, and you will hate me for not seeing it as right, as you do.

            “And,” she says, most firmly, because he has a litany of arguments ready, always has, “I have not walked away from my life. I came to warn you, not to stay.” He opens his mouth, and she feels his grip tighten again, ready to protest, but she sidesteps, extracting herself from between the table and the press of his body. “I’m right. You know I am.”

            It is a wrench when he lets go, but it is for the best. It is. “I won’t hate you.” Naïve is not a word she had ever thought to affix to William Manderly.

            Sidonie does not reply and sets about straightening her skirts. She has already attempted one Sisyphean task this evening; she does not have the strength for another.

            “They’ll be suspicious if they find out you’ve gone,” he says at last. If only he would stop looking at her.

            She pats at her hair. “I left a torn coat and a hat near the gate. They will think I was taken.”

            He blinks. “You don’t wear hats.” The fishhook in her chest pulls again, and it is caught deeper than she’d thought.

            “I do here.”

            Billy rearranges the papers they’d disturbed. Though Sidonie cannot see any order to how he places them on the table, he does so methodically, taking his time. “Then it’s best you stay here for a few days. It’ll be more convincing if we demand a ransom.”

            She nods, giving in far too quickly to the suggestion. There is no certainty that a ransom would be paid. Something to be worried about later. She’s exhausted.

            Billy takes a lantern from one end of the table and cuts the wick. He does this slowly too, before turning down a hall. She supposes she ought to follow.

            Sidonie turns at the door. “I lost the two men dearest to me because they could not see through their pride what true victory was.”

            He says nothing. _Ah, well, I did try._ _If god has a sense of humor it is blacker than coal._ There is nothing more infuriating than trying to lead a blind man down a clear path and he believes the wilderness is safer.

            The door clicks softly shut behind her, and Sidonie sinks down onto the mattress, surprised to feel feathers instead of straw. The room as the unmistakable touch of a woman – a porcelain basin atop an embroidered runner, a vase on the windowsill. With so many men, Sidonie wonders how this room has remained untouched.

            There is a book on the table, a thick strip of paper marking a spot midway through. She turns the cover towards her. _The Tempest_. Of course. The room is his.

_Fool._


End file.
